xauth fails to create .xauthority file and throws error, .xauthority does not exist if either the disk is full and there is no more space to create any new file or user quota exceeded the limits.
Suppose you run xauth command and got this error –
ironman@N40L ~ $ xauth xauth: file /home/ironman/.Xauthority does not exist Using authority file /home/ironman/.Xauthority xauth>
It shows that file .Xauthority does not exist. To create .Xauthority file, follow these steps –
Step 1: Login with the required user and go to home directory.
Step 2: Rename and backup the existing .Xauthority file.
mv .Xauthority old.Xauthority
Step 3: Touch otherwise xauth with complain unless ~/.Xauthority exists
touch ~/.Xauthority
Step 4: Only this one key is needed for X11 over SSH
xauth generate :0 . trusted
Step 5: Generate our own key, xauth requires 128 bit hex encoding
xauth add ${HOST}:0 . $(xxd -l 16 -p /dev/urandom)
Step 6: To view a listing of the .Xauthority file
xauth list
Also, you should check for the disk space. If it is full then remove some files and make space otherwise system won’t be able to create new files. To check space, use this command –
df -h
If you get the below error then it means the number of files quota exceeded for your user. It’s time to free up space.
$ touch ~/.Xauthority touch: cannot touch ‘/nethome/jdoe/.Xauthority’: Disk quota exceeded
These solutions will definitely solve your problems of .xauthority does not exist.