F14 LXDE spin lxdm-greeter does not go anywhere....

[Ranjan Maitra]

Hi,

Just installed Fedora 14 LXDE spin on my trusty IBM T61 Thinkpad laptop.

It was a clean install, however after install, I can not get beyond the
login screen.

Here is what happens:

I input my user name for the Username:  
hit enter
and then my password next to Password:

Both go away, but the big Login screen does not. (Basically nothing
happens). Hitting the quit button to reboot/shutdown causes a flashback
to the first login screen (and then the above process is repeated with
amazing regularity).

Going in to console mode and logging in shows lxdm-greeter as a process
running. Nothing else is out of the ordinary.

Any suggestions?

Ranjan

[Christoph Wickert]

Am Dienstag, den 02.11.2010, 10:17 -0500 schrieb Ranjan Maitra:
> Hi,
>
> Just installed Fedora 14 LXDE spin on my trusty IBM T61 Thinkpad laptop.
>
> It was a clean install, however after install, I can not get beyond the
> login screen.
>
> Here is what happens:
>
> I input my user name for the Username:  
> hit enter
> and then my password next to Password:
>
> Both go away, but the big Login screen does not. (Basically nothing
> happens). Hitting the quit button to reboot/shutdown causes a flashback
> to the first login screen (and then the above process is repeated with
> amazing regularity).
>
> Going in to console mode and logging in shows lxdm-greeter as a process
> running. Nothing else is out of the ordinary.

So you can login on the console with the same username and password?
> Any suggestions?

Boot with SELinux disabled to see if it is the culprit. When the grub
prompt appears, hit a key to get to the menu. Then select your kernel
and hit "e" to edit. Select the line starting with "kernel=...", hit "e"
again and add "enforcing=0" to the end of the line. Then press "b" to
boot.

If it is a SELinux Problem, please tell me what version of
selinux-policy is installed.

Regards,
Christoph

[Ranjan Maitra]

Hi Chris,

Thanks very much!

On Tue, 2 Nov 2010 16:05:31 -0500 Christoph Wickert
 wrote:
> Am Dienstag, den 02.11.2010, 10:17 -0500 schrieb Ranjan Maitra:
> > Hi,
> >
> > Just installed Fedora 14 LXDE spin on my trusty IBM T61 Thinkpad laptop.
> >
> > It was a clean install, however after install, I can not get beyond the
> > login screen.
> >
> > Here is what happens:
> >
> > I input my user name for the Username:  
> > hit enter
> > and then my password next to Password:
> >
> > Both go away, but the big Login screen does not. (Basically nothing
> > happens). Hitting the quit button to reboot/shutdown causes a flashback
> > to the first login screen (and then the above process is repeated with
> > amazing regularity).
> >
> > Going in to console mode and logging in shows lxdm-greeter as a process
> > running. Nothing else is out of the ordinary.
>
> So you can login on the console with the same username and password?

Yes, I can. But I have found a strange workaround and that is if I
switch to the console and back: i.e. doing Ctrl-Alt-F2 and Ctrl-Alt-F1
in quick succession.
> > Any suggestions?
>
> Boot with SELinux disabled to see if it is the culprit. When the grub
> prompt appears, hit a key to get to the menu. Then select your kernel
> and hit "e" to edit. Select the line starting with "kernel=...", hit "e"
> again and add "enforcing=0" to the end of the line. Then press "b" to
> boot.

I added enforcing=0 at the very end of that line and no change. I
waited for at least a couple of minutes and then tried my trick above.
That worked.

I got some SELinux alerts as before:
SELinux is preventing /usr/sbin/lxdm-binary "unlink" access
on .Xauthority

Also, 
SELinux is preventing /usr/sbin/setfiles access to a leaked /usr/local/maitra/.xsession-errors file descriptor:

In both cases, the notification does say:
[SELinux is in permissive mode. This access was not denied.]

Note that I have always had my home directory in /usr/local.
> If it is a SELinux Problem, please tell me what version of
> selinux-policy is installed.

3.9.7-7.fc14-noarch.
> Regards,
> Christoph

Many thanks again and best wishes,
Ranjan

[Christoph Wickert]

Am Dienstag, den 02.11.2010, 17:16 -0500 schrieb Ranjan Maitra:
> Hi Chris,
>
> Thanks very much!

Hi Ranjan,

you are welcome!
> On Tue, 2 Nov 2010 16:05:31 -0500 Christoph Wickert
>  wrote:
> > So you can login on the console with the same username and password?
>
> Yes, I can. But I have found a strange workaround and that is if I
> switch to the console and back: i.e. doing Ctrl-Alt-F2 and Ctrl-Alt-F1
> in quick succession.

Strange. This looks like a problem with your hardware and the X server,
seems something goes wrong when LXDM tries to switch the VTs.

Please edit /etc/lxdm/lxdm.conf and change the line
        arg=/usr/bin/X -nr vt1
to
        # arg=/usr/bin/X -nr vt1

The X-Server should then start on vt7 as it used to be in pre-plymouth
times. Does this work any better?
> I added enforcing=0 at the very end of that line and no change. I
> waited for at least a couple of minutes and then tried my trick above.
> That worked.

Ok, good to know. I really think it's an X problem.
> I got some SELinux alerts as before:
> SELinux is preventing /usr/sbin/lxdm-binary "unlink" access
> on .Xauthority

This is a known problem, but it doesn't prevent you from logging in. See
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=635897
> Also, 
> SELinux is preventing /usr/sbin/setfiles access to a
> leaked /usr/local/maitra/.xsession-errors file descriptor:
>
> In both cases, the notification does say:
> [SELinux is in permissive mode. This access was not denied.]
>
> Note that I have always had my home directory in /usr/local.

Uhh, please don't do that. If will break a *lot* of SELinux rules. Your
home should be /home/maitra.

Regards,
Christoph

[Ranjan Maitra]

Hi Christoph,

Thanks again!

On Tue, 2 Nov 2010 18:11:26 -0500 Christoph Wickert
 wrote:
> Am Dienstag, den 02.11.2010, 17:16 -0500 schrieb Ranjan Maitra:
> > Hi Chris,
> >
> > Thanks very much!
>
> Hi Ranjan,
>
> you are welcome!
> > On Tue, 2 Nov 2010 16:05:31 -0500 Christoph Wickert
> >  wrote:
> > > So you can login on the console with the same username and password?
> >
> > Yes, I can. But I have found a strange workaround and that is if I
> > switch to the console and back: i.e. doing Ctrl-Alt-F2 and Ctrl-Alt-F1
> > in quick succession.
>
> Strange. This looks like a problem with your hardware and the X server,
> seems something goes wrong when LXDM tries to switch the VTs.
>
> Please edit /etc/lxdm/lxdm.conf and change the line
>         arg=/usr/bin/X -nr vt1
> to
>         # arg=/usr/bin/X -nr vt1
>
> The X-Server should then start on vt7 as it used to be in pre-plymouth
> times. Does this work any better?

For a while, I thought it was worse, because my trick no longer worked.
However replacing F7 with F1 does do the difference.
> > I added enforcing=0 at the very end of that line and no change. I
> > waited for at least a couple of minutes and then tried my trick above.
> > That worked.
>
> Ok, good to know. I really think it's an X problem.

I agree. but it is strange that no one else is seeing it yet....
> > I got some SELinux alerts as before:
> > SELinux is preventing /usr/sbin/lxdm-binary "unlink" access
> > on .Xauthority
>
> This is a known problem, but it doesn't prevent you from logging in. See
> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=635897
> > Also, 
> > SELinux is preventing /usr/sbin/setfiles access to a
> > leaked /usr/local/maitra/.xsession-errors file descriptor:
> >
> > In both cases, the notification does say:
> > [SELinux is in permissive mode. This access was not denied.]
> >
> > Note that I have always had my home directory in /usr/local.
>
> Uhh, please don't do that. If will break a *lot* of SELinux rules. Your
> home should be /home/maitra.

But Fedora had fixed this problem long ago. It used to be the case that
contexts needed to be defined/restored manually. In any case, that does
not seem to be a problem.
> Regards,
> Christoph

Thanks again!

Ranjan