can't login as normal user

brooney · Posted: Fri Sep 20, 2002 7:13 pm Post subject: can't login as normal user

hello,

i've installed gentoo on a fresh machine and now have X installed along with gnome. however i am having trouble logging in / getting gnome to come up when i try logging in as a normal user. i've tried to the following two scenerios:

1. if i don't have xdm in my init scripts so that i log in via command line as a normal user, then i try to run startx, it tries to start and then goes back to the command line. no errors that i can see anywhere

2. if i add xdm, with gnome and gdm configured in rc.conf, to my init scripts and reboot so that i have the gdm log in screen displayed, then when i try to login as a normal user i get the following message in a pop up screen:

/etc/X11/gdm/PreSession/Default: Registering your session with wtmp and utmp
/etc/X11/gdm/PreSession/Default: running: session -a -w /var/log/wtmp -u /var/run/utmp -x "/var/lib/gdm/:0.Xservers" -h "" -l :0 brooney

and then it takes me back to the gdm login screen.

if i do either of these steps as root, it works fine.

does anybody have any ideas? i've installed linux quite a few times with different distro's along with lfs and haven't come across this before.

thanks in advance
ben

pjp · Administrator Joined: 16 Apr 2002 Posts: 20090

Do you have your shell set in /etc/passwd?
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brooney · Posted: Fri Sep 20, 2002 7:26 pm Post subject:

yes. it wasn't then i set it after reading a post in the forums. no difference. i even tried reboot to ensure the user info was loaded correctly though i didn't think i really need to do that

brooney · Posted: Fri Sep 20, 2002 7:29 pm Post subject: pam and shadow

i also noticed that gentoo installed pam and shodow passwords and i've never dealt with those before so i'm wondering if that would have any affect. i notice there is a xdm file in the /etc/pam.d directory. not sure how all that works though.

pjp · Administrator Joined: 16 Apr 2002 Posts: 20090

Anything interesting in /var/log/XFree86.0.log?
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sisob · Posted: Fri Sep 20, 2002 7:33 pm Post subject:

you tried creating a new user account?
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brooney · Posted: Sun Sep 22, 2002 3:14 pm Post subject: still problems

i've looked at the /var/log/XFree86.0.log file and can't see any error messages or any real differences from when i startx using root and when i start x using a normal user. the diff follows:

bash-2.05a# diff XFree86.0.log.root XFree86.0.log.brooney
13c13
< (==) Log file: "/var/log/XFree86.0.log", Time: Sun Sep 22 16:58:06 2002
---
> (==) Log file: "/var/log/XFree86.0.log", Time: Sun Sep 22 16:55:51 2002
52c52
< (II) PCI: stages = 0x03, oldVal1 = 0x00000000, mode1Res1 = 0x80000000
---
> (II) PCI: stages = 0x03, oldVal1 = 0x8000680c, mode1Res1 = 0x80000000
488d487
< AUDIT: Sun Sep 22 16:58:18 2002: 3442 X: client 5 rejected from local host

i've also tried to create a new user again to see if that made a diff. basically i created a new group for the new user then ran:

useradd -g testuser -m -s /bin/bash testuser

this test user is also unable to startx

any other ideas? is the pam.d / shadow passwords a possible area where this could be failing?

rac · Posted: Mon Sep 23, 2002 12:41 am Post subject:

Could this be a /tmp permission problem like this one? /tmp should be 1777.
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brooney · Posted: Mon Sep 23, 2002 9:28 am Post subject: working

rac, you are a beautiful person

that fixed it. i'm now able to run gnome as a normal user. woo hoo. thanks all for your help