transient service directory: XDG_RUNTIME_DIR "var/run/user/1

wrc1944 · Last edited by wrc1944 on Sat Feb 17, 2018 6:52 am; edited 1 time in total

For the last few months, I've been getting this every time I su from user to root.

eccerr0r · Posted: Mon Feb 12, 2018 1:09 am Post subject:

Consolekit / logind(systemd) should be setting $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR up, are you actually setting this manually? I also wonder why it's missing the first slash - this should be an absolute path to a temporary directory, usually in /run (ramdisk).

XDG = X Desktop Group - not a systemd thing, though related. It tries to make the individual desktop environments share similar setup so that if you change desktop environments, things still show up similarly from apps to desktop clutter, so to speak.

Do you have anything else in your login/rc scripts when su'ing that use dbus? When I su to root, XDG_RUNTIME_DIR still points to my user's XDG_RUNTIME_DIR but dbus does not emit that error.
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Hu · Moderator Joined: 06 Mar 2007 Posts: 21593

When you su to root, exactly what command do you run? Specifically, do you use the form that resets the environment or the form that inherits parts of the original environment? If the latter, this could be as simple as that dbus assumes $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR will be owned by self and reacts badly when $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR is inherited from the old user. If so, the fix is to use /bin/su - so that the environment is reset.

wrc1944 · Posted: Mon Feb 12, 2018 5:16 pm Post subject:

@eccerr0r & Hu,
Thanks very much for the replies.

The missing slash was a typo, sorry. The full command I always use is just su.

wrc1944 · Posted: Mon Feb 12, 2018 6:10 pm Post subject:

Maybe this might help figuring out what's going on?:

Hu · Moderator Joined: 06 Mar 2007 Posts: 21593

wrc1944 · Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2018 7:34 am Post subject:

Thanks Hu,
I did figure that out earlier today after reading up on su, but you are correct, I did miss the trailing "-" after /bin/su you posted before. :oops:

I forgot I had known about the su - option, but having just used su for 15 years, it just skipped my mind.

While su - works great and there's no longer any message, I still haven't got an XDG_RUNTIME_DIR I can find. Where is it supposed to show up?

I'm still not understanding that if I do really need it, how can my kde DE or LXDE and xfce4 still run normally? I also changed the permissions on /var/run/user/1000, changing the group root from forbidden to Can view and modify content in hopes it would be able to generate XDG_RUNTIME_DIR. Didn't help any, and I doubt doing that is a good idea, or it wouldn't be forbidden by default.

One other minor thing- su - gets me to a root konsole, but all my gentoo command aliases in /root/.bash.rc no longer worked. Had to create /root/.bash.profile, and move them there, then they all worked. again.

Here's the output now:

Hu · Moderator Joined: 06 Mar 2007 Posts: 21593

/bin/su - causes the new shell to be a login shell. Per info bash, it is expected (if somewhat counterintuitive and of questionable value) that login shells read profile and do not read bashrc, while non-login shells (such as produced by /bin/su without the dash) read bashrc and do not read profile. I usually have my profile startup source bashrc to compensate for this.

Sorry, I cannot answer your questions about XDG_RUNTIME_DIR, other than to say that its permissions were likely correct before you changed them.

wrc1944 · Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2018 12:55 am Post subject:

I finally found some relevant info on the Arch Linux Wiki page at https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/XDG_Base_Directory_support

eccerr0r · Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2018 2:14 am Post subject:

As I said above, consolekit (via a PAM plugin) will set it for you on openrc boxes - you do not and should not need to set it manually ... If it's not being automatically set, make sure your consolekit is installed properly and ensure your pam config files are up to date (etc-update/dispatch-conf).

If you're not using consolekit, chalk this one up to weird configurations that Gentoo has to deal with and you'll need to deal with it somehow...
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wrc1944 · Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2018 6:44 am Post subject:

Thanks for all the advice, and it's much appreciated, but I'm not getting anywhere figuring out why this isn't working (getting an XDG_RUNTIME_DIR set).
As mentioned, all my Gentoo installs work fine, there are no outstanding etc-update config files (always keep current), I assume consolekit is properly installed (for years).
Pam, dbus, and consolekit are global USE flags.

What PAM plugin is needed? /etc/pam.d contains 41 config files, but I have no idea of how they should be correctly configured (.i.e. which control directives are correct for each line in every file).

I've read the Gentoo Pam wiki page, and many other pam, consolekit, and dbus pages for many distros, etc., etc.

I still must be missing something very basic, but at this point I'm stuck. :roll:

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eccerr0r · Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2018 9:43 am Post subject:

Apologies for getting a bit irate when the wrong things are being blamed. Systemd has sucked up too much crap, but this was NOT systemd's fault for the way things are - consolekit was the initial "solution" that systemd sucked up. Consolekit was even the second incarnation that Linux went through to deal with to get a unified desktop environment.

In any case, when you login with pam, the pam config /etc/pam/system-login is loaded.

There should be a line:

wrc1944 · Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2018 2:41 pm Post subject:

eccerr0r,
Thanks much for all the help.
I've always used a DM to login, currently sddm since kf5 was released. Previous DMs over the last 15 years were kdm, gdm, lightdm.

I've never set any XDG stuff manually- never had to, or actually never even thought about XDG, or pam/consolekit. Everything just worked normally, and still does, except for su now having that message in the last 2-3 months. su - doesn't have the message.

Here's my current /etc/pam.d/system-login file. I've never edited any of the pam.d config files, or even thought about them. Never had the occasion to do so.

eccerr0r · Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2018 11:05 pm Post subject:

Could you post the versions of

dbus
consolekit
polkit/policykit
shadow
pam

that you are using? None of my systems appear to match your setup (I have all sorts of systemd, openrc, gnome, xfce4, fvwm mixtures and can't match your setup.)

Also you should scrutinize your ~root/.bash*, ~root/.profile, etc. files just to be sure you don't have anything inexplicable there.

Another thing I'm curious of:
What if you run

wrc1944 · Posted: Sun Feb 18, 2018 12:37 am Post subject:

Running pkexec in a konsole user terminal a kde type dialog box informing "Authentication is needed to run '/bin/bash as the superuser" pops up. I type my root password in, enter, and it takes me to root in the next terminal line, just like su used to do. NO DBUS ERROR, no message. Thanks for the polkit su tip! Wasn't aware of that.

My versions currently are:
sys-apps/dbus-1.12.4:0
sys-auth/polkit-0.113-r4:0
sys-auth/consolekit-1.2.1:0
sys-apps/shadow-4.5:0
sys-libs/pam-1.3.0-r2:0

no policykit installed

I have created (years ago) /root/.bashrc, and .bash.profile. with all my current Gentoo command aliases, like:

eccerr0r · Posted: Sun Feb 18, 2018 1:37 am Post subject:

Okay there's some new behavior going on that I can't duplicate because my machines are a bit behind in updates. Since I haven't upgraded to the versions you have, no wonder why I couldn't find anything. Will let you know later once I update, or if someone else is up to date they could investigate further...
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wrc1944 · Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2018 1:35 am Post subject:

Just ran this in a user konsole terminal, and got:

eccerr0r · Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2018 1:46 am Post subject:

Real Name is gotten from your /etc/passwd gecos field, so if you didn't specify one, this is normal.
So now you're saying that /var/run/user/1000 doesn't exist when you login?

How about /var/run/user or even /var/run ?

/var/run should -> /run

/run/user should be owned by root:root and mode 755 .

I'm not sure who creates /run/user however, since /run usually is tmpfs.
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Intel Core i7 2700K/Radeon R7 250/24GB DDR3/256GB SSD
What am I supposed watching?

wrc1944 · Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2018 4:15 pm Post subject:

Sorry- I wasn't clear. :oops:

I meant to say that /var/run/user/1000/XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/ still doesn't exist, which as I understand it is supposed to be created by default (or not?).

/var/run/user/ exists and is root:root 755., and /var/run/user/1000/ exists (owned by user) and is user:root 777.

/etc/passwd is root:root 644

/var/run is -> /run

OK- read up on /etc/passwd, and now realize that "realname = '(null)'" is the 5th field, and refers to and is for the user's actual REAL NAME and other personal info, NOT the Linux user's name, in my case "wrc".

Ah well, another foolish misunderstanding and the consequence of not doing enough basic reading of Linux documentation.... will I ever learn? :roll:

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kernel-6.8.4 USE=experimental python3_11

wrc1944 · Posted: Mon Feb 26, 2018 5:57 pm Post subject:

eccerr0r & Hu,
After reading much on the "XDG_RUNTIME_DIR" which I don't seem to have (in /var/run/user/1000/), I noticed I do have the following 5 files there:

dolphinos4952.6.slave-socket (0B) socket
kdeinit5_0 (0B) socket
kdesud_:0 (0B) socket
klauncherTj3583.1slave-socket (0B) socket
KSMserver_0 (69B) plain text file

Further, I've come to realize these files were apparently created at the time of my last system boot up, and are specifically the exact files that countless items I've read say are precisely the types of files mentioned as being the ones that would be contained in the "XDG_RUNTIME_DIR".

Ive concluded that apparently Gentoo and my other distros are no longer using "XDG_RUNTIME_DIR" for the locations for these files, and are now defaulting to placing them in /var/run/user/1000/. That would explain why even though I don't have an "XDG_RUNTIME_DIR" created, I still have those so-called "non-essential" empty files (sockets) created, (in case they are needed), and confirmed by the fact that all my linux systems run normally without the"XDG_RUNTIME_DIR" existing .

Further, the error message when using "su" only in GUI terminals is caused by dbus, pam, and/or consolekit not knowing the default is now NOT the "XDG_RUNTIME_DIR", but instead /var/run/user/1000/.

At least that's my latest theory, and as long as these files are found in /var/run/user/1000/ all is OK.

Am I on the right track, or off base?

UPDATE: Weird- Never seen this before after 15 years of compiling kernels with make xconfig.
(mkx is my alias for:) "export $(dbus-launch) && make xconfig"

turtles · Veteran Joined: 31 Dec 2004 Posts: 1654

Greetings did you ever figure this out?
I have the same issue
https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-1098206-highlight-.html
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wrc1944 · Posted: Wed Jul 03, 2019 4:09 pm Post subject:

turtles,
I never really "figured it out", but after looking at this thread again I've decided it doesn't seem to matter in any relevant way to the normal functioning of my three Gentoo systems, and thus have essentially have lost interest.

Of course I'd look at any brief and concise explanations or conclusions posted.

In other words, I guess it's one of those "if it ain't really broke, stop worrying about fixing it" situations. :roll:

_________________
Main box- AsRock x370 Gaming K4
Ryzen 7 3700x, 3.6GHz, 16GB GSkill Flare DDR4 3200mhz
Samsung SATA 1000GB, Radeon HD R7 350 2GB DDR5
OpenRC Gentoo ~amd64 plasma, glibc-2.36-r7, gcc-13.2.1_p20230304
kernel-6.8.4 USE=experimental python3_11