FC8 Login Problem

Fri Dec 7 14:40:48 UTC 2007

________________________________________
F
Message: 16
Date: Thu, 6 Dec 2007 16:29:40 -0500
From: Rosco Rouse <Rosco.Rouse at sas.com>
Subject: FC8 Login Problem
To: "fedora-list at redhat.com" <fedora-list at redhat.com>
Message-ID:
        <345520A34347BA49B798F70B218ACD130436513DBD at MERCMBX14.na.sas.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

My workstation is a Dell Optiplex 745.  I've got FC8 installed, yum'ed up and running pretty good with one exception.  I'm unable to login to this workstation using my enterprise userid.  This workstation lives in a computing environment where Windows is the normal desktop, but where Unix servers and Linux servers abound.  I am required to establish as the primary user account on this desktop machine, the very same userid I am assigned in the larger corporate world, which we'll call "corp".  So. once I install, I create a user account that I'll call "temp".  I'm supposed to use temp just long enough to get the machine configured and, using my desktop root authority, copy my enterprise /etc/passwd entry into my desktop /etc/passwd.  Along the way, I have to change the home directory listed in that entry according to how I've got it mounted to my desktop machine.  Thus, no matter if I'm on my desktop workstation, or logged onto any of a thousand servers, I'm still me and still
 using my own stuff.  Cool.  This worked just fine for me for a couple years with FC6.

However, I'm not able to login to my workstation using corp.  When the session manager gui comes up both temp and corp are listed.  I choose corp, give it my password, and then I get a dialog that I'll paraphrase as "Your home directory doesn't seem to exist.  Would you like to login as root?".

You'd think this was a simple problem of a bad mount, or a bad password, or some other finger check during the establishment of the desktop /etc/passwd entry.  But, I don't think that's the case.  When I login as temp, then start a shell, I can "su corp" just fine.  I'm fully me; with full access to the correct home directory.

I've poked all around the User and Groups dialog, gone through the /etc/passwd editing process very carefully three times, I'vd tried establishing several more user accounts on the desktop with complete success.  I've not been able to find anyt similar problems on the FC newsgroups.   I've check everything in /var/log/* for evidence of a mount problem...none exists.  I  did find this entry in /var/log/secure:

messages:Dec  6 14:08:18 mydesk gdm-binary[2340]: WARNING: gdm_slave_session_start: Home directory for corp: /remote/yada/yada/corp' does not exist!

I'm not even sure what kind of a problem this would be.  Is this a gdm problem?  Is it an authentication problem?  Is it sunspots?  I just wanna be me!

Thanks for your suggestions, Rosco

------------------------------

Message: 17
Date: Thu, 6 Dec 2007 16:41:11 -0500
From: "Miner, Jonathan W \(CSC\) \(US SSA\)"
        <jonathan.w.miner at baesystems.com>
Subject: RE: FC8 Login Problem
To: "For users of Fedora" <fedora-list at redhat.com>
Message-ID: <7FCB0E206880084DB3D57CBAA2119F120674E4F4 at blums0010>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

        -----Original Message-----
        From: fedora-list-bounces at redhat.com on behalf of Rosco Rouse
        Sent: Thu 12/06/2007 04:29 PM
        To: fedora-list at redhat.com
        Cc:
        Subject: FC8 Login Problem

          I  did find this entry in /var/log/secure:

        messages:Dec  6 14:08:18 mydesk gdm-binary[2340]: WARNING: gdm_slave_session_start: Home directory for corp: /remote/yada/yada/corp' does not exist!

        I'm not even sure what kind of a problem this would be.

        -----------------------------------------

        Sounds like that directory is not getting mounted. Might be helpful to see the entries from /etc/passwd and /etc/fstab, or the appropriate automount maps.

I'll be glad to provide that information.  Note also in the shell log listed below that I demonstrate that I'm able to cd to the supposedly non-existent directory and list a well-known file from it.  And, then I'm able to su to the corp userid.

temp at mydesk log]$ cd
[temp at mydesk ~]$ pwd
/home/temp
[temp at mydesk ~]$ cd /remote/yada/yada/corp
[temp at mydesk corp]$ ls .kshrc
.kshrc
[temp at mydesk corp]$ su corp
Password:
$ whoami
corp
$ cat /etc/passwd
root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash
bin:x:1:1:bin:/bin:/sbin/nologin
daemon:x:2:2:daemon:/sbin:/sbin/nologin
adm:x:3:4:adm:/var/adm:/sbin/nologin
lp:x:4:7:lp:/var/spool/lpd:/sbin/nologin
sync:x:5:0:sync:/sbin:/bin/sync
shutdown:x:6:0:shutdown:/sbin:/sbin/shutdown
halt:x:7:0:halt:/sbin:/sbin/halt
mail:x:8:12:mail:/var/spool/mail:/sbin/nologin
news:x:9:13:news:/etc/news:
uucp:x:10:14:uucp:/var/spool/uucp:/sbin/nologin
operator:x:11:0:operator:/root:/sbin/nologin
games:x:12:100:games:/usr/games:/sbin/nologin
gopher:x:13:30:gopher:/var/gopher:/sbin/nologin
ftp:x:14:50:FTP User:/var/ftp:/sbin/nologin
nobody:x:99:99:Nobody:/:/sbin/nologin
vcsa:x:69:69:virtual console memory owner:/dev:/sbin/nologin
rpc:x:32:32:Rpcbind Daemon:/var/lib/rpcbind:/sbin/nologin
nscd:x:28:28:NSCD Daemon:/:/sbin/nologin
tcpdump:x:72:72::/:/sbin/nologin
dbus:x:81:81:System message bus:/:/sbin/nologin
rpm:x:37:37:RPM user:/var/lib/rpm:/sbin/nologin
pulse:x:499:497:PulseAudio daemon:/:/sbin/nologin
polkituser:x:87:87:PolicyKit:/:/sbin/nologin
avahi:x:498:494:avahi-daemon:/var/run/avahi-daemon:/sbin/nologin
mailnull:x:47:47::/var/spool/mqueue:/sbin/nologin
smmsp:x:51:51::/var/spool/mqueue:/sbin/nologin
apache:x:48:48:Apache:/var/www:/sbin/nologin
hsqldb:x:96:96::/var/lib/hsqldb:/sbin/nologin
ntp:x:38:38::/etc/ntp:/sbin/nologin
sshd:x:74:74:Privilege-separated SSH:/var/empty/sshd:/sbin/nologin
rpcuser:x:29:29:RPC Service User:/var/lib/nfs:/sbin/nologin
nfsnobody:x:65534:65534:Anonymous NFS User:/var/lib/nfs:/sbin/nologin
torrent:x:497:492:BitTorrent Seed/Tracker:/var/spool/bittorrent:/sbin/nologin
haldaemon:x:68:68:HAL daemon:/:/sbin/nologin
gdm:x:42:42::/var/gdm:/sbin/nologin
temp:x:500:500:Not Really Rosco:/home/temp:/bin/bash
corp:x:7821:201:Rosco Rouse:/remote/yada/yada/corp:/bin/ksh
silly:x:7822:7822:Silly User:/home/silly:/bin/bash
$ cat /etc/fstab
/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 /                       ext3    defaults        1 1
LABEL=/boot             /boot                   ext3    defaults        1 2
tmpfs                   /dev/shm                tmpfs   defaults        0 0
devpts                  /dev/pts                devpts  gid=5,mode=620  0 0
sysfs                   /sys                    sysfs   defaults        0 0
proc                    /proc                   proc    defaults        0 0
/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol01 swap                    swap    defaults        0 0
bigserver:/yada/yada /remote/yada/yada nfs rw 0 0

$

Rosco