NAME

xnews − window system server

SYNOPSIS

xnews [ :display ] [ serveroptions ] [ [ -dev device ] [ deviceoptions ] ]...

DESCRIPTION

The xnews command starts the X11/NeWS window system server.  The server supports both the X11 and NeWS protocols.  Clients connect to the server by opening the socket appropriate to the protocol they use.  The X11 protocol is described in the X Window System Protocol, Version 11, from MIT.  The C language binding to the X11 protocol is described in Xlib - C Language X Interface, Version 11, also from MIT. 

The NeWS protocol is a superset of the POSTSCRIPT page description language, described in the POSTSCRIPT Language Reference Manual by Adobe Systems, Inc.  NeWS extensions to the POSTSCRIPT language are described in The NeWS Programmer’s Guide, from Sun.  The C client interface is also described there. 

SERVER OPTIONS

[ :display ]
The server will listen for X11 and NeWS connections on sockets indexed by display.  This allows you to run multiple servers on the same machine and still connect to a specific display. 

[ −auth authorization-file ]
Specifies a file which contains a collection of authorization records used to authenticate access. This option is normally used by openwin(1) to initialize the server’s authorization mechanism. Using this option will initialize the server’s host-based access list to empty. Connecting client programs must send correct authorization information to the server at connection time or they will be rejected. This is transparently handled by libX for X11 clients or by libcps for NeWS clients. Older versions of libX and libcps may not send authorization information, so older clients may not be able to connect to a server started with this option unless the client programs are relinked. See Chapter 8, Security Issues, in OW Programmer’s Guide for more information about the various authentication protocols supported by the window server. 

[ −cubesize small | large ]
This determines the size of the color cube contained in the StaticColor colormap, which is the default colormap used by NeWS programs.  small is the default cube size value since it leaves the most room for X11 clients to allocate colors without conflicting with NeWS colors.  large will generate better looking NeWS rendering, but will increase the chance of conflicts between X11 and NeWS colors.  small provides a color cube with 5 colors along the red axis, 5 along the green axis, and 5 along the blue axis.  It also provides 15 additional shades of gray above and beyond the grays contained in the color cube.  This can be described by the syntax: 5x5x5+15.  This gives a total of 140 colors).  The large cube size, on the other hand, provides a color cube of the form 5x9x5+15.  It has a total size of 240 colors. 

[ −escape ]
This option enables the user to forcibly exit the server. This is accomplished by holding down the following sequence of keys: L1-Alt-Delete. If your keyboard lacks these keys, the escape sequence will contain keys in similar positions. Keyboards lacking the L1 key use the Pause key instead.

[ −defeateventsecurity ]
This tells xnews to disable the security feature that detects synthetically created events.  Any event distributed by the server, even if it was created by a client program, will have a synthetic field with value false.  NeWS events will see this as a false value in the /Synthetic field of events.  X11 events will all lack the synthetic bit in the type field.  This flag allows clients which need to generated synthetic events, such as the journalling demo, to run correctly.  Running the X11/NeWS server with this option enabled exposes your workstation to many security risks.  It is not recommended that this option be enabled except when explicitly needed.

[ −favorstatic ]
This option increases the chances of NeWS colors being displayed on the screen.  It is intended for users who use a lot of NeWS applications. When xnews installs a software colormap into the hardware, it must decide what to do for color cells in that software colormap which have not been allocated.  What it usually does is to look in the default colormap for an allocated cell and load this value.  Next, if the cell in the default colormap is not allocated either, it just leaves the hardware alone for that cell.  What this option does is to force xnews to look in the StaticColor map for an allocated cell immediately after the the examination of the default colormap has failed.  Thus, if this option is used, colors from the StaticColor will get loaded into the hardware more often. 

[ −fp path,... ]
This option sets the default font path to the directories given in the path argument.  The directories are interpreted by the server, not by the client, and are server-dependent.  Directories that do not contain font databases created by bldfamily(1) will be ignored by the server.  The −fp option takes precedence over the FONTPATH environment variable. 

[ −init ’POSTSCRIPT-code’ ]
The server interprets this POSTSCRIPT language code to initialize the server.  If this option is not specified, xnews  executes the following: (NeWS/init.ps) (r) file cvx exec This code fragment sets up the X11/NeWS server for its normal use.  When specifying this argument, putting single quotes around the POSTSCRIPT-code will protect it from premature interpretation by the shell. 

[ −nosunview ]
Specifying this option disables the SunView binary compatibility mode. The benefits of using this mode is that the SunView libraries and kernel driver are no longer required to start Openwindows and the xnews server will run with less overhead.  With this option enabled, you can no longer start multiple xnews servers on a single machine.

[ −nobanner ]
This option will prevent the display of the OpenWindows banner screen at startup, slightly decreasing the amount of time needed to start the server. This is the default.

[ −banner ]
This option will display the OpenWindows banner screen at startup, slightly increasing the amount of time needed to start the server.

[ −nominexp ]
This option is used to disable "minimized exposure", which is only used by multi-planegroup devices such as gt, cg12 and cg8.  "Minimized Exposure" means that the server will not send  expose events to windows in one planegroup that are exposed by windows in another planegroup.

[ −sunview_border_width width ]
This option allows a user to specify the width, in units of pixels, of the border surrounding each SunView window.  A border is created around all SunView windows as a cleansing zone for the mouse cursor image.  On some framebuffers where we still use a software cursor, residual of the cursor image can be left on the screen when moving between SunView windows and OpenWindows.  The default border width is 11 pixels.

[ −iobuffersize size ]
This option allows a user to request that the server use network input/output buffers of a specific size.  The argument should be specified in units of kilobytes.  This is a device and network dependent option, and there is no guarantee that the server can actually configure the network buffers to the requested size.

[ −sharedretainedpath ]
This option is currently supported only for Sun internal software APIs.

DEVICE OPTIONS

[ −dev framebuffer ]
This specifies the framebuffer device which the server should use for display. If this option is not set, the default is /dev/fb.  Subsequent uses of this option indicate multiple displays on the same server.  After each -dev option a list of modifiers changes the behavior of the named device. 

[ grayvis ]
This device modifier tells xnews to use the GrayScale or StaticGray visual as the default visual depending on the state of the staticvis device modifier.  If this option is selected, the server no longer supports StaticColor and PseudoColor visuals. Both visual types are not reported in response to a call to XGetVisualInfo. The default is to use the PseudoColor or GrayScale visual. 

[ staticvis ]
This device modifier tells xnews to use a StaticColor or StaticGray visual as the default visual depending on the state of the grayvis device modifier.  The default is to use the PseudoColor or GrayScale visual. 

[ defdepth n ]
This device modifier tells xnews that a visual of the given depth should be the default visual.   The class of the default visual will be the same as the built-in default, unless staticvis and/or grayvis are also present on the command line.  If the visual requested is not a supported visual of the device, or is not allowed to be the default, an error message is generated.   For a list of allowable default visuals and other information about using this device modifier, refer to the Graphics Device Support chapter of the OpenWindows Programming Guide.

[ left ][ right ][ top ][ bottom ]
This indicates where you would like a given screen in relation to the previous one on the command line.

[ pos x y ]
This indicates where you would like a given screen as an absolute coordinate on the global root.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

The X11/NeWS server recognizes the following environment variables:

DISPLAY
Before starting an X11 application, you can set this environment variable to tell the application which server to connect to. If unset, you must specify the server on the application’s command line with the -display option.  It is of the following form: hostname:display.screen Here, hostname may be the name of a host, unix, or localhost.  The display argument is normally 0.  The .screen argument is optional. 

FONTPATH
A list of directories, separated by semicolons, telling the server where to look for fonts (if the default font path has not already been set by the −fp option). If unset, it defaults to $OPENWINHOME/lib/fonts. 

LD_LIBRARY_PATH
This variable is used by the shared library linker to determine which directories to examine for shared libraries. It should normally be set to $OPENWINHOME/lib:/usr/lib. 

NEWSSERVER
Before starting a NeWS application, you can set this environment variable to tell the application which server to connect to.  If unset, the application will default to the local server, socket 2000.  (For information on how to set this environment variable, see the manual page for newsserverstr.) 

OPENWINHOME
Should be set to the directory in which the server’s directory hierarchy is installed, for instance "/usr/local/openwin".  Below this directory are the binaries, libraries, fonts, man pages and demos.  If this is not set the default is "/usr/openwin".

FILES

$OPENWINHOME/etc/NeWS/∗.ps
Startup POSTSCRIPT language code. 

$OPENWINHOME/lib/fonts/∗
Font library.

$OPENWINHOME/bin/xnews
The server.

~/.startup.ps
User-definable server customizations, loaded before other system ∗.ps files. 

~/.user.ps
User-definable server customizations, loaded after other system ∗.ps files

/usr/sys/sun4X/OBJ/evqmod-sun4X.o
Kernel streams driver used by xnews to read input from mouse and keyboard.

/etc/openwin/modules/evqload
Script to create evq device entry.

X11 PROPERTIES

xnews creates the following X11 Standard Colormap property on the root window of each configured 8-bit indexed color screen: Name Atom: XA_RGB_DEFAULT_MAP
Type Atom:XA_RGB_COLOR_MAP
Format:32
Contents Type:XStandardColormap These atoms are predefined and are declared in <X11/Xatom.h>.  The XStandardColormap struct is defined in <X11/Xutil.h>. The value of this property is a single XStandardColormap which contains a description of the NeWS color cube in the StaticColor colormap.  Only the color portion of the StaticColor colormap is described; the gray ramp portion is not described. The information contained in this property will vary depending on whether the staticvis device modifier is used.  Refer to the Xlib C Language X Interface for more information on Standard Colormaps. Refer to the X11/NeWS Server Guide for more information on the StaticColor colormap.

SEE ALSO

kbd_mode(1), newsserverstr(1), olwm(1), openwin(1), psh(1)

NeWS Programmer’s Guide

OpenWindows Programming Guide

POSTSCRIPT Language Reference Manual, Adobe Systems Inc., Addison-Wesley

X Window System Protocol, Version 11, MIT

Xlib - C Language X Interface, Version 11, MIT

BUGS

Some parts of the POSTSCRIPT language have yet to be implemented.  See the appendix in the NeWS Programmer’s Guide entitled Omissions and Implementation Limits. 

The server is not yet completely robust when it runs out of memory.  This out-of-memory condition occurs because swap space has been used up.  Swap space is a resource that is shared by all the processes running on your machine. 

When running SunView 1 programs, you may see Window display lock broken... messages. 

If you do not have a console window, messages to the console disrupt the entire window system display. 

Anyone who can gain access (legitimately or otherwise) to the system on which the server is running, or to any system allowed to access the server, has, through either the X11 or the NeWS protocol, unrestricted access to the resources of the server.  They can monitor the keyboard and the mouse, read information from the screen, and interfere with the operation of other clients. 

TRADEMARK

POSTSCRIPT is a registered trademark of Adobe Systems Inc. 

Solbourne Computer, Inc.  —  14 March 1991