# Moving .Xauthority file?



## Derydlus (May 14, 2014)

I prefer keeping my home folder's hidden files cleanly separated between base and locally installed, moving all configuration into $XDG_CONFIG_HOME or just $HOME/.config/. .Xauthority is giving me some trouble though. I know this is a minor issue, but I'm more curious than frustrated here: how would I go about moving this?

As per the man pages, I've tried setting the XAUTHORITY variable everywhere I can think of to $HOME/.cache/Xauthority, and, as I use XDM, I also edited /usr/local/lib/X11/xdm/Xservers to append -auth $HOME/.cache/Xauthority. According to the man pages this should work, but evidently it does not. I even attempted leaving a symlink, only to have the symlink erased and overwritten with a new .Xauthority file on login. Neither /var/log/Xorg.0.log nor /var/log/xdm.log say anything about this, which surprises me, as one would think that ignoring both $XAUTHORITY and -auth would warrant an explanation. Setting $XAUTHORITY in my xsession is just about the only place X actually listens to that variable for me, but this simply results in me not being able to log in, as X is still, despite -auth, placing .Xauthority in $HOME.

Is there something terribly simple that I'm missing here, or is this just not possible? As I mentioned, at this point I'm more curious than actually annoyed by the one remaining local hidden file.


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