Trusted Solaris Operating System - Technical FAQs

Question

When we try to run Applixware, we get an error message that the application cannot find its font paths. Why?

Answer

In Trusted Solaris 2.5, font administration was a restricted operation. This restriction was relaxed for Trusted Solaris 2.5.1 and later compatible releases, so the only time you would see this problem would be if your site's administrator had turned on the more restrictive policy.

The X server maintains a list of paths where it expects to find all needed fonts. Applications sometimes expect to be able to add their own fonts to this list by appending a new path. Some applications, such as Applixware, treat the failure to be able to add fonts as a fatal error, and they die.

To override the restriction, the security administrator role can make the win_fontpath privilege available to the application, if doing so is consistent with the site's security policy.

Instead of adding privileges, we recommend that security administrators set the font path in the Xsession script. The Xsession script runs when a login session starts, sets the path using its own privileges, and finishes before the user has access to the desktop. When the application comes up, it then has the font path it needs without privileges being required. See Procedure.

Procedure
  1. Assume the root role.
  2. Install the application.
  3. Assume the security administrator role.
  4. If the application does not create the font directory (which Applixware does not do), make the directory using mkfontdir(1).
  5. Use the Admin Editor action in the Sys_Admin folder to bring up the /usr/dt/bin/Xsession script for editing.
  6. Add the xset line to set the font path.
    1. Search for the section that begins with a comment "Append desktop font paths."
    2. Go to the end of the loop that starts below the comment to the blank lines after the last fi.
    3. Insert the line that sets the fontpath before the next comment, "Source user's default profile" (at line 497 in the default file).


    4. # #########################
      #
      # Append desktop font paths
      #
      # #########################
      PH*PH*PH\u00A0PH*PH*PHPH*PH*PH\u00A0PH*PH*PHPH*PH*PH\u00A0PH*PH*PH.PH*PH*PH\u00A0PH*PH*PHPH*PH*PH\u00A0PH*PH*PH.PH*PH*PH\u00A0PH*PH*PHPH*PH*PH\u00A0PH*PH*PH.
      xset fp+       name_of_fontpath


      # #########################
      #
      # Source user's default profle


  7. Save and quit the file.
Related Information

If you decide to add privileges to the application itself, make sure to move the application's dynamic shared libraries to a trusted location or add the library pathname to the rtld file (as described in the answer to the FAQ: " Why can't my privileged program find the shared libraries?").

Applies to Trusted Solaris Release

2.5, 2.5.1, 7, 8