accessing shell when gnome locks up.

[Larry Kelly]

I have Fedora6 with VIA chipset onboard video and Gnome.  Many of the
installed  applications will freeze the display screen, and mouse.  When
this happens is there a Gnome keyboard shortcut that will give me access to
a shell prompt, so that I can kill the offending process, or restart X
windows.  Right now, my only option is to turn the power off.

-- 
Best Regards,
-Larry
"Work, work, work...there is no satisfactory alternative."
            --- E.Taft Benson

[Craig White]

On Mon, 2007-02-26 at 06:44 -0800, Larry Kelly wrote:
>  I have Fedora6 with VIA chipset onboard video and Gnome.  Many of
> the
>  installed  applications will freeze the display screen, and mouse.
>  When this happens is there a Gnome keyboard shortcut that will give me
>  access to a shell prompt, so that I can kill the offending process, or
>  restart X windows.  Right now, my only option is to turn the power
>  off.   
----
<control><alt><shift><backspace> simultaneously will kill X
server

probably a good idea to figure out what is going on...check
out /var/log/Xorg.0.log (.old if X server is restarted) for clues

Craig

[taharka]

How do,

On Mon, 2007-02-26 at 07:53 -0700, Craig White wrote:
>  On Mon, 2007-02-26 at 06:44 -0800, Larry Kelly wrote:
>  > I have Fedora6 with VIA chipset onboard video and Gnome.  Many of the
>  > installed  applications will freeze the display screen, and mouse.
>  > When this happens is there a Gnome keyboard shortcut that will give me
>  > access to a shell prompt, so that I can kill the offending process, or
>  > restart X windows.  Right now, my only option is to turn the power
>  > off.  
>  ----
>  <control><alt><shift><backspace> simultaneously will kill X
> server 
I'm familiar with the "<control><alt><backspace>" combo,
what does the
added shift key do?

>  probably a good idea to figure out what is going on...check
>  out /var/log/Xorg.0.log (.old if X server is restarted) for clues
>  
>  Craig 
taharka

Lexington, Kentucky U.S.A.

[Craig White]

On Mon, 2007-02-26 at 11:27 -0500, taharka wrote:
>  How do,
>  
>  On Mon, 2007-02-26 at 07:53 -0700, Craig White wrote:
>  > On Mon, 2007-02-26 at 06:44 -0800, Larry Kelly wrote:
>  > > I have Fedora6 with VIA chipset onboard video and Gnome.  Many of the
>  > > installed  applications will freeze the display screen, and mouse.
>  > > When this happens is there a Gnome keyboard shortcut that will give me
>  > > access to a shell prompt, so that I can kill the offending process, or
>  > > restart X windows.  Right now, my only option is to turn the power
>  > > off.  
>  > ----
>  > <control><alt><shift><backspace> simultaneously will kill X
> server
>  
>  I'm familiar with the "<control><alt><backspace>" combo,
> what does the
>  added shift key do? 
----
allows me to inject an apparently utterly useless extra keypress in the process I
suppose.

;-)

Craig

[taharka]

On Mon, 2007-02-26 at 10:05 -0700, Craig White wrote:
>  On Mon, 2007-02-26 at 11:27 -0500, taharka wrote:
>  > How do,
>  > 
>  > On Mon, 2007-02-26 at 07:53 -0700, Craig White wrote:
>  > > On Mon, 2007-02-26 at 06:44 -0800, Larry Kelly wrote:
>  > > > I have Fedora6 with VIA chipset onboard video and Gnome.  Many of the
>  > > > installed  applications will freeze the display screen, and mouse.
>  > > > When this happens is there a Gnome keyboard shortcut that will give me
>  > > > access to a shell prompt, so that I can kill the offending process, or
>  > > > restart X windows.  Right now, my only option is to turn the power
>  > > > off.  
>  > > ----
>  > > <control><alt><shift><backspace> simultaneously will
> kill X server
>  > 
>  > I'm familiar with the "<control><alt><backspace>"
> combo, what does the
>  > added shift key do?
>  ----
>  allows me to inject an apparently utterly useless extra keypress in the process I
> suppose.
>  
>  ;-) 
OK, thought maybe there was an added benefit with it. Could have used
some last week, as beagled went zombie & I had to pound
<Ctrl><Alt><Backspace> repeatedly for ~5min in order to kill the X
server :-(

>  Craig 
taharka

Lexington, Kentucky U.S.A.

[Tim]

On Mon, 2007-02-26 at 06:44 -0800, Larry Kelly wrote:
>  I have Fedora6 with VIA chipset onboard video and Gnome.  Many of
> the
>  installed  applications will freeze the display screen, and mouse.  When
>  this happens is there a Gnome keyboard shortcut that will give me access to
>  a shell prompt, so that I can kill the offending process, or restart X
>  windows.  Right now, my only option is to turn the power off. 
If your keyboard is still being paid attention to, you've a couple of
simple options:

You can CTRL ALT F1 over to a text console, log in and issue commands.

You can CTRL ALT BACKSPACE to restart the X server.

-- 
(This PC runs FC4, my others FC5 & FC6, in case that's important
 to the thread)

Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored.
I read messages from the public lists.

[Oldman]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Larry Kelly wrote:
>  I have Fedora6 with VIA chipset onboard video and Gnome.  Many of
> the
>  installed  applications will freeze the display screen, and mouse.  When
>  this happens is there a Gnome keyboard shortcut that will give me access
>  to a shell prompt, so that I can kill the offending process, or restart
>  X windows.  Right now, my only option is to turn the power off. 
>   
Sure!

Use the key combination Ctrl-Alt-F1 which will switch you to a TTY
console (plain text only here and any of the F1-F6 keys will work) now
you can log in as root or as yourself if you prefer but you may need
root privileges if you are going around killing processes.

In case you don't know, you can find the process most easily using the
command:

ps aux|grep $process

substitute the name of the program you think is froze.   You will get
back the PID of the process that you can use to kill it (kill PID).

You can then use the key combination Ctrl-Alt-F7 to return you to the
Xwindows session and see if it is usable again.  If so you'll probably
want to return to the root session and log out (use command exit or Ctrl-D).

Scott
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux)
> Comment: Using GnuPG with Fedora - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
>
> iD8DBQFF4vbc5mBKdb7VQEcRAnQ6AKCYJmzg3CdZTY2BwZZBz7FcluYMWACfZY2p
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> =uWXb
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

[Charles Curley]

Please turn off the HTML mail. Thanks.

On Mon, Feb 26, 2007 at 06:44:42AM -0800, Larry Kelly wrote:
>  
>     I  have Fedora6 with VIA chipset onboard video and Gnome.  Many of the
>     installed  applications will freeze the display screen, and mouse.  When
>     this happens is there a Gnome keyboard shortcut that will give me access to
>     a shell prompt, so that I can kill the offending process, or restart X
>     windows.  Right now, my only option is to turn the power off. 
If you have another computer handy, try:

http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/5405

-- 

Charles Curley                  /"\    ASCII Ribbon Campaign
Looking for fine software       \ /    Respect for open standards
and/or writing?                  X     No HTML/RTF in email
http://www.charlescurley.com    / \    No M$ Word docs in email

Key fingerprint = CE5C 6645 A45A 64E4 94C0  809C FFF6 4C48 4ECD DFDB

[Andras Simon]

On 2/26/07, Charles Curley <charlescurley(a)charlescurley.com&gt; wrote:
>  Please turn off the HTML mail. Thanks.
>
>  On Mon, Feb 26, 2007 at 06:44:42AM -0800, Larry Kelly wrote:
>  >
>  >    I  have Fedora6 with VIA chipset onboard video and Gnome.  Many of the
>  >    installed  applications will freeze the display screen, and mouse.
>  When
>  >    this happens is there a Gnome keyboard shortcut that will give me
>  access to
>  >    a shell prompt, so that I can kill the offending process, or restart X
>  >    windows.  Right now, my only option is to turn the power off.
>
>  If you have another computer handy, try:
>
>  http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/5405 
Or simply set up mgetty so that you can log in through a nullmodem
cable on a serial port. Probably safer, too (if very 90ish).

Andras

[Tim]

On Mon, 2007-02-26 at 23:36 +0100, Andras Simon wrote:
>  Or simply set up mgetty so that you can log in through a nullmodem
>  cable on a serial port. Probably safer, too (if very 90ish).  
What are you going to do when serial ports disappear from motherboards?

-- 
(This box runs FC6, my others run FC4 & FC5, in case that's
 important to the thread.)

Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored.
I read messages from the public lists.

[Chris Mohler]

>  What are you going to do when serial ports disappear from
> motherboards? 
Weep!

Chris

[Andras Simon]

On 2/27/07, Chris Mohler <cr33dog(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:
>  > What are you going to do when serial ports disappear from
> motherboards?
>
>  Weep! 
No! Curse! Much more efficient! :-)

Or, as a last resort, get a usb->serial port converter.

BTW, I'm only advocating this approach, not using it myself. I don't
remember having a lockup since I last tried to use NVidia's driver.
But then I'm not using Gnome or KDE, just a trusty old fvwm (1.24r).

Andras



>  Chris
>
>  --
>  fedora-list mailing list
>  fedora-list(a)redhat.com
>  To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
>

[Tim]

Tim:
> >> What are you going to do when serial ports disappear from
> motherboards? 
Chris Mohler:
> > Weep! 
Andras Simon:
>  No! Curse! Much more efficient! :-)
>  
>  Or, as a last resort, get a usb->serial port converter.
>  
>  BTW, I'm only advocating this approach, not using it myself. I don't
>  remember having a lockup since I last tried to use NVidia's driver.
>  But then I'm not using Gnome or KDE, just a trusty old fvwm (1.24r). 
I was serious in asking it.  While I haven't done the serial console
trick, I see the purpose of it, and the need to be able to do such
things.  I don't know if a USB-serial doodah would be useful in the
situations where you might use a serial console, you mightn't have
anything available to drive it.

-- 
(This PC runs FC4, my others FC5 & FC6, in case that's important
 to the thread)

Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored.
I read messages from the public lists.

[Les Mikesell]

Tim wrote:
>  Tim:
> >>> What are you going to do when serial ports disappear from motherboards?
>  
>  Chris Mohler:
> >> Weep!
>  
>  Andras Simon:
> > No! Curse! Much more efficient! :-)
> >
> > Or, as a last resort, get a usb->serial port converter.
> >
> > BTW, I'm only advocating this approach, not using it myself. I don't
> > remember having a lockup since I last tried to use NVidia's driver.
> > But then I'm not using Gnome or KDE, just a trusty old fvwm (1.24r).
>  
>  I was serious in asking it.  While I haven't done the serial console
>  trick, I see the purpose of it, and the need to be able to do such
>  things.  I don't know if a USB-serial doodah would be useful in the
>  situations where you might use a serial console, you mightn't have
>  anything available to drive it. 
These days you'd be much more likely to have another computer or laptop 
  with an ethernet connector available than a serial terminal or cable 
with the right-sized, right-gender ends.  If you don't have a hub, use a 
crossover ethernet cable to connect and use ssh.  Or get wireless 
working and forget about all that nonsense.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell(a)gmail.com

[Tim]

On Tue, 2007-02-27 at 07:59 -0600, Les Mikesell wrote:
>  These days you'd be much more likely to have another computer or
>  laptop with an ethernet connector available than a serial terminal or
>  cable with the right-sized, right-gender ends.  If you don't have a
>  hub, use a crossover ethernet cable to connect and use ssh.  Or get
>  wireless working and forget about all that nonsense. 
Can you use that sort of thing, though, for when debuggers would have
been providing information out the serial port?  Or when you'd have been
using a serial console managing bootup?

-- 
(This PC runs FC4, my others FC5 & FC6, in case that's important
 to the thread)

Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored.
I read messages from the public lists.

[Les Mikesell]

Tim wrote:
>  On Tue, 2007-02-27 at 07:59 -0600, Les Mikesell wrote:
> > These days you'd be much more likely to have another computer or
> > laptop with an ethernet connector available than a serial terminal or
> > cable with the right-sized, right-gender ends.  If you don't have a
> > hub, use a crossover ethernet cable to connect and use ssh.  Or get
> > wireless working and forget about all that nonsense.
>  
>  Can you use that sort of thing, though, for when debuggers would have
>  been providing information out the serial port?  Or when you'd have been
>  using a serial console managing bootup? 
A lot of servers (at least IBM, Sun, Dell) these days do provide network 
access to the console with an extra management port.  If you have enough 
machines that it is a real issue you can get these models.  Otherwise 
you use a kvm or just plug in the monitor and keyboard when you need it 
(usb keyboards are good for that).  Places like Google probably don't 
even bother.  The time it takes to debug a broken machine on site costs 
more than replacing it.  I usually compromise, using  machines with 
swappable drives and try to revive them with a disk swap before giving up.

-- 
  Les Mikesell
   lesmikesell(a)gmail.com

[Andras Simon]

On 2/27/07, Les Mikesell <lesmikesell(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:
>  Tim wrote:
>  > Tim:
>  >>>> What are you going to do when serial ports disappear from motherboards?
>  >
>  > Chris Mohler:
>  >>> Weep!
>  >
>  > Andras Simon:
>  >> No! Curse! Much more efficient! :-)
>  >>
>  >> Or, as a last resort, get a usb->serial port converter.
>  >>
>  >> BTW, I'm only advocating this approach, not using it myself. I don't
>  >> remember having a lockup since I last tried to use NVidia's driver.
>  >> But then I'm not using Gnome or KDE, just a trusty old fvwm (1.24r).
>  >
>  > I was serious in asking it.  While I haven't done the serial console
>  > trick, I see the purpose of it, and the need to be able to do such
>  > things.  I don't know if a USB-serial doodah would be useful in the
>  > situations where you might use a serial console, you mightn't have
>  > anything available to drive it.
>
>  These days you'd be much more likely to have another computer or laptop
>    with an ethernet connector available than a serial terminal or cable
>  with the right-sized, right-gender ends.  If you don't have a hub, use a
>  crossover ethernet cable to connect and use ssh.  Or get wireless
>  working and forget about all that nonsense. 
If you regularly need to have access to your computer over the
network, then you already have sshd running on it, and you have no
problem to solve. But I'd hate (read: wouldn't know how to do it
securely, in a finite amount of time) to open up a port and run sshd
just to be able to log in remotely once in a blue moon to kill some
stupid gnome thingy. The serial approach is relatively simple and you
don't have to worry about future security holes discovered in the
tcp/ip stack, iptables and sshd.

Andras

[Les Mikesell]

Andras Simon wrote:

> >
> > These days you'd be much more likely to have another computer or laptop
> >   with an ethernet connector available than a serial terminal or cable
> > with the right-sized, right-gender ends.  If you don't have a hub, use a
> > crossover ethernet cable to connect and use ssh.  Or get wireless
> > working and forget about all that nonsense.
>  
>  If you regularly need to have access to your computer over the
>  network, then you already have sshd running on it, and you have no
>  problem to solve. 
I generally don't find computers to be very useful without networking 
and the ability to access them without touching them.

>  But I'd hate (read: wouldn't know how to do it
>  securely, in a finite amount of time) to open up a port and run sshd
>  just to be able to log in remotely once in a blue moon to kill some
>  stupid gnome thingy. 
Pretty much every linux distribution comes with that capability already 
carefully planned and does the right thing if you install it.

>  The serial approach is relatively simple and you
>  don't have to worry about future security holes discovered in the
>  tcp/ip stack, iptables and sshd. 
Other people are worrying about that.  All you have to do is use good 
passwords and keep your system up to date.  Much less attention is 
probably being paid to the security risks of mgetty or serial ports.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
     lesmikesell(a)gmail.com

[Andras Simon]

On 2/27/07, Les Mikesell <lesmikesell(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:
>  Andras Simon wrote:
>
>  >>
>  >> These days you'd be much more likely to have another computer or laptop
>  >>   with an ethernet connector available than a serial terminal or cable
>  >> with the right-sized, right-gender ends.  If you don't have a hub, use a
>  >> crossover ethernet cable to connect and use ssh.  Or get wireless
>  >> working and forget about all that nonsense.
>  >
>  > If you regularly need to have access to your computer over the
>  > network, then you already have sshd running on it, and you have no
>  > problem to solve.
>
>  I generally don't find computers to be very useful without networking
>  and the ability to access them without touching them. 
I almost agree. Life would be much more complicated if I couldn't
access remotely my shell account at work. But at home, I'm quite happy
with a computer with networking but without the ability to be ssh'd
into. (And there are some computers I'd find _very_ useful even
without any kind of networking... but they're very expensive :-))

>  > But I'd hate (read: wouldn't know how to do it
>  > securely, in a finite amount of time) to open up a port and run sshd
>  > just to be able to log in remotely once in a blue moon to kill some
>  > stupid gnome thingy.
>
>  Pretty much every linux distribution comes with that capability already
>  carefully planned and does the right thing if you install it. 
Do you mean that installing sshd and iptables and perhaps a few more
packages is all one needs to do? I'd think that even if you don't plan
to provide access, you have to do a couple of things before a new
Fedora box is ready to face the internet. But maybe you're right: the
tweakings I usually do is shutting down various services, and
tightening up (to the best of my knowledge - which is not much) the
firewall rules. So, if I wanted to allow remote access, I'd need to do
less, not more.

>  > The serial approach is relatively simple and you
>  > don't have to worry about future security holes discovered in the
>  > tcp/ip stack, iptables and sshd.
>
>  Other people are worrying about that.  All you have to do is use good
>  passwords and keep your system up to date.  Much less attention is
>  probably being paid to the security risks of mgetty or serial ports. 
They may be full of security holes that are exploitable _locally_. But remotely?

Andras

[Andras Simon]

On 2/27/07, Tim <ignored_mailbox(a)yahoo.com.au&gt; wrote:
>  Tim:
>  >>> What are you going to do when serial ports disappear from motherboards?
>
>  Chris Mohler:
>  >> Weep!
>
>  Andras Simon:
>  > No! Curse! Much more efficient! :-)
>  >
>  > Or, as a last resort, get a usb->serial port converter.
>  >
>  > BTW, I'm only advocating this approach, not using it myself. I don't
>  > remember having a lockup since I last tried to use NVidia's driver.
>  > But then I'm not using Gnome or KDE, just a trusty old fvwm (1.24r).
>
>  I was serious in asking it.  While I haven't done the serial console
>  trick, I see the purpose of it, and the need to be able to do such
>  things.  I don't know if a USB-serial doodah would be useful in the
>  situations where you might use a serial console, you mightn't have
>  anything available to drive it. 
I'm dead serious, too! (Especially about the cursing part :-).) I
actually used a nullmodem cable (+ mgetty and kermit) to connect my
Linux boxes back when they didn't have NICs.

As an aside: I also used PLIP for a while (that's IP via the parallel
port, for those who are too young to know). That was much better for
large file transfers. But this was back in the days when I compiled my
own kernel (I haven't done that since RH7.3 or maybe even 6.2). If I
wanted to connect two boxes with anything more complicated than a
nullmodem now, I'd have to ask it here how to proceed...

I don't know what drives a usb->serial converter, but if things are in
such a state that it can't do its thing, then probably mgetty can't
either, and  the power switch is your best bet. But I hope that X
going berserk doesn't result in such a mess.

Andras

[Carroll Grigsby]

On Tuesday 27 February 2007 5:54:52 am Tim wrote:
>  Tim:
>  >>> What are you going to do when serial ports disappear from motherboards?
>
>  Chris Mohler:
>  >> Weep!
>
>  Andras Simon:
>  > No! Curse! Much more efficient! :-)
>  >
>  > Or, as a last resort, get a usb->serial port converter.
>  >
>  > BTW, I'm only advocating this approach, not using it myself. I don't
>  > remember having a lockup since I last tried to use NVidia's driver.
>  > But then I'm not using Gnome or KDE, just a trusty old fvwm (1.24r).
>
>  I was serious in asking it.  While I haven't done the serial console
>  trick, I see the purpose of it, and the need to be able to do such
>  things.  I don't know if a USB-serial doodah would be useful in the
>  situations where you might use a serial console, you mightn't have
>  anything available to drive it. 
I once used a NetMOS PCI card that provided four additional serial ports so 
that I could access both a modem and a UPS on a motherboard with only one 
serial port. Cheap and effective. (It's no longer in use, however -- my new 
UPS has a USB interface, and I moved from dialup to cable.)
-- cmg

[Mikkel]

Tim wrote:
>  Tim:
> >>> What are you going to do when serial ports disappear from motherboards?
>  
> >
> > Or, as a last resort, get a usb->serial port converter.
> >
>  
>  I was serious in asking it.  While I haven't done the serial console
>  trick, I see the purpose of it, and the need to be able to do such
>  things.  I don't know if a USB-serial doodah would be useful in the
>  situations where you might use a serial console, you mightn't have
>  anything available to drive it.
>   
For desktops, you can get a PCI card with serial ports. I have a 2
serial/1 parallel card that works great. They also make
PCMCIA/Cardbus serial cards, but they tend to be hard to find, and
expensive. If you go the USB to serial route, just remember that the
cheap ones don't usually support the status lines, so you have to
use software flow control, not hardware flow control. Also, some
devices will not work properly without properly functioning hardware
flow control. (Windows CE devices for example.)

Mikkel
-- 

  Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons,
for thou art crunchy and taste good with Ketchup!