How to Find the Mouse Pointer

An untrusted application can gain control of the keyboard or mouse pointer. By finding the pointer, you can regain control of the desktop focus.

1. To regain control of a Sun keyboard, press Meta-Stop.

   Press the keys simultaneously to regain control of the current desktop focus. On the Sun keyboard, the diamond key on either side of the spacebar is the Meta key.

   If the grab of the keyboard or mouse pointer is not trusted, the pointer moves to the trusted stripe. A trusted pointer does not move to the trusted stripe.

2. If you are not using a Sun keyboard, press Alt-Break.

Example 3-3  Forcing the Mouse Pointer to the Trusted Stripe

In this example, a user is not running any trusted processes but cannot see the mouse pointer. To bring the pointer to the center of the trusted stripe, the user presses the Meta-Stop keys simultaneously.

Example 3-4  Finding the Real Trusted Stripe

On a multiheaded Trusted Extensions system whose monitors are configured to display a separate desktop on each monitor, a user sees one trusted stripe per monitor. Therefore, a program other than Trusted Extensions is generating a trusted stripe. Only one trusted stripe displays when a multiheaded system is configured to display a separate desktop per monitor.

The user halts work and immediately contacts the security administrator. Then, the user finds the real trusted stripe by placing the mouse pointer in an untrusted location, such as over the workspace background. When the user presses the Alt-Break keys simultaneously, the pointer moves to the trusted stripe that is generated by Trusted Extensions.