xhost/display oddities

[Chris Green]

Can anyone explain the following regarding xhost, display permissions,
etc.

I have an /etc/X0.hosts file with the following in it:-

    127.0.0.1

If I open a Cygwin win2k console window I can run rxvt and an rxvt
window pops up successfully.  It's using the above X0.hosts permission
because if I remove the above file rxvt won't start  and says it can't
open display 127.0.0.1:0.0.

However if I try and run xhost it says 'unable to open display ""' and
similarly xlsfonts says the same thing.

How does rxvt know to try and open display 127.0.0.1:0.0 whereas xhost
and xlsfonts (and others presumably) just have nothing for the
display?

It's fixable by setting DISPLAY in the environment but it's a bit
confusing.

Come to that why on earth does xlsfonts want to open the display
anyway, it only outputs to the console window.


-- 
Chris Green (chris@areti.co.uk)