On Mon, 3 Aug 1998, Perry E. Metzger wrote:

: They aren't really "spool files" either. "spool" is really for things
: like the mail queue, print queue, etc. Perhaps someone could suggest a
: better directory for them? What are the auth files, precisely?

Actually, they're a lot closer to spool files than they are to pidfiles or
logs.  I'd gesture that /var/spool is a very good place for them.

The auth files hold the cookies used in MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 authentication
(which is administered by xauth) - that's the facility by which you can have
a remote X connection from a host that isn't in your xhost list.  Good for
NFS-shared home directories, and reduces what foreign users can connect to
your X display.

-- 
-- Todd Vierling (Personal tv@pobox.com; Bus. todd_vierling@xn.xerox.com)