AFAIK, there's no functional difference between a BEGIN block with and without "sub".

Oh - that's a new one on me. :) Thanks!

As for the OP's problem, the issue presumably is that the www-data user doesn't have a cookie that would allow authentication with the X server.

Mmm... maybe. Or it might require having the remote X server listen for the connection on 6000+; depends on how 'ptkdb' is written, I would think. Most Linux distros these days run X with the '-nolisten tcp' option, which is quite the pain to disable (I needed to do it a while back, in similar circumstances); at that point, 'xhost hostname' allows communication from the other host, etc. As I'm sure you're aware, though, this has various security implications.

(Ah, good old X, with its annoyingly-high level of access to root privileges and infuriatingly-arcane protocols. Always such fun. :)

Update: I just tried it out. On my machines (Ubuntu "Oneiric Ocelot", both ends), setting the cookie didn't help; turning off '-nolisten tcp' and running 'xhost otherhost' popped up that 'ptkdb' window right away.

Actually, I'm not very happy with that. When I get a little more time (I've got to run off to my boat and do a bunch of maintenance), I'm going to see if I can force it to work in a more reasonable way - i.e., the way you suggested - or figure out how to patch ptkdb so it works with that model, if possible. 

-- 
I hate storms, but calms undermine my spirits.
 -- Bernard Moitessier, "The Long Way"

In reply to Re^3: Remote ptkdb behind firewall by oko1
in thread Remote ptkdb behind firewall by glendeni

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.