[MPlayer-users] Re: gmplayer and SUID

[rcooley]

Juan C. Gallardo wrote:
> If you try to run gmplayer it seems like GTK don't allow the program to run
> because is surpassing the X-server, and a small message say something about
> doing a helper file.. which I have no idea how to do it.
> Then looking again in internet I found a "helper" file, the one I wrote
> before.
> And even though I tried it, it didn't work. That's why I was asking if some
> one else knows how to access the gmplayer once set the SUID bit.
> 
> I hope this time I explained better my self.
> 
> Juan C. Gallardo

Just to clarify, you are getting that message from GTK+, it has nothing 
to do with X.  I've seen this complain from GTK, that it isn't very 
secure to run a GTK app that is SUID...  Yes, it talks about a helper 
application, but that is to tell programmers that they should have a 
seperate, non-GTK app that is SUID, instead of the GTK app...  Unless 
you are going to rewrite GMPlayer, you really can't make a 'helper' app.

There are a few things you could do.  You could run gmplayer as root 
using sudo, instead of setting it SUID.  You could visit the GTK site, 
and download and install an older version of glib/gtk.  Or, as I would 
suggest, you can download the source to the version of GTK you are 
using, and search through the source for part of the text of that 
message, to see where you can disable that...  There's nothing I hate 
more than a program that thinks it knows things better than I do, and 
second-guesses me.  I don't recall what version of GTK does this (it 
might just be some distro-specific package).