From: Zack Evans (zevans@nyx.cs.du.edu)
Date: 08/06/93


From: zevans@nyx.cs.du.edu (Zack Evans)
Subject: Re: How to get console windows in X for non root?
Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1993 22:30:39 GMT

In article <mr2CBAvqE.25y@netcom.com>, Jongyoon Lee <mr2@netcom.com> wrote:

>The subject says it all. When I log on as root, and bring up X windows,
>I can get a console window which will print out system messages such as
>su failed or somesuch. But when I'm an ordinary user, the console
>window doesn't work as console.

I think you need to be root to write to /dev/console; in the docs for
XFree86 1.3 it says to ensure that xterm and xconsole are suid root.
(I presume xterm needs to be for login reasons, as well as xterm -C)

So try as root

# suid 4555 xconsole xterm; chown root xconsole xterm.

Try taking out the symlink as well, and checking permissions on /dev/console.

Zack