Xlib: PuTTY X11 proxy: wrong authentication protocol attempted

Steve Stonebraker
June 3, 2011

Here’s the fix for Xlib: PuTTY X11 proxy: wrong authentication protocol attempted

(source: http://froebe.net/blog/2008/11/14/getting-xlib-putty-x11-proxy-wrong-authentication-protocol-attempted-i-have-the-answer/)

Run “xauth list” on the user for your x11 session
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Take that output and su/sudo to the user you are getting the error on and run “xauth add” + output from xauth list (example below)

[user@someServer ~]$ xauth list
someServer:3  MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1  577ddecc40417a68032aa70dfa0a5d91
someServer/unix:3  MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1  577ddecc40417a68032aa70dfa0a5d91
someServer/unix:10  MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1  53b2a27e73b30b29f15b6c0db0cf8f32
[user@someServer ~]$ sudo su root
[root@someServer user]# xauth add someServer:3  MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1  577ddecc40417a68032aa70dfa0a5d91
xauth:  creating new authority file /root/.Xauthority
[root@someServer user]# xauth add someServer/unix:3  MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1  577ddecc40417a68032aa70dfa0a5d91
[root@someServer user]# xauth add someServer/unix:10  MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1  53b2a27e73b30b29f15b6c0db0cf8f32