[7702] in testers
Re: My Athena session will not run.
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Quentin Smith)
Wed Sep 17 15:55:55 2008
Date: Wed, 17 Sep 2008 15:55:09 -0400 (EDT)
From: Quentin Smith <quentin@MIT.EDU>
To: William Cattey <wdc@mit.edu>
cc: testers@mit.edu, athena10@mit.edu
In-Reply-To: <4A855825-CA55-4893-BAD5-E4997360ADC4@mit.edu>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.64L.0809171554250.11949@vinegar-pot.mit.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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I believe that GNOME has a feature whereby it will look for files in your
home directory matching *modmap* and will ask you if you want them to be
loaded. I've seen the same prompt about my modmap file on Athena 9.
I don't think it gets this information by scanning .startup.X or anything
like that.
--Quentin
On Wed, 17 Sep 2008, William Cattey wrote:
> Ok, this is bizarre.
>
> Now I am able to log in just fine.
>
> amb suggested that the problem was that the gconfd-wdc directory in /tmp
> might have been owned by the old uid 1000 for the local wdc.
>
> I did ls -n and determined that wasn't the case. The directory was owned by
> uid 11306, my Athena uid.
>
> I saved the contents of /tmp, removed them and tried again to log in.
> no joy. Instant abort as always, and complaint that it couldn't read my
> .xsession-errors file when I asked to see details.
>
> I then changed my session to "GNOME Failsafe".
> Interestingly it logged me in just fine, asking me if I wanted to set
> "alps_modmap".
> I have no .startup.X file.
> However, moving it aside a couple times, I have a .startup.X~ and a
> .startup.X.foo file
> both of which refer to alps_modmap.
>
> Is it possible that our bash-based Athena default X session is being too
> aggressive looking
> for any file beginning with ".startup.X" instead of an exact match? Probably
> not, since NOTHING else like setting a variable "hostname" seems to have been
> executed.
>
> Anyway, I told it, no I didn't want to run alps_modmap, and it gave me a
> perfectly normal looking session.
>
> I then logged out, change the login session to "GNOME" and logged back in.
> I was asked if I wanted to keep session "GNOME" for this one trial or for all
> time,
> and i selected for all time.
>
> It then logged me in just fine.
>
> ----
>
> How do we figure out what happened here so that it doesn't happen to others?
>
> How did the Ubuntu sesssion decide to care about my alps_modmap script?
>
> Shouldn't all the gnome and session directories created in /tmp be removed on
> logout anyway? They were not. Present in /tmp after I logged out were:
>
> Directories: gconfd-wdc, orbit-wdc, pulse-wdc, virtual-wdc.nDwIAZ
> File: xses-wdc.VlQT6x
>
> If there's something that gets messed up in one of these directories, it will
> break the ability to log in, won't it?
>
> -wdc
>
>
> On Sep 16, 2008, at 6:01 PM, William Cattey wrote:
>
>> In another thread we're working on debugging the account deletion
>> procedure.
>> Meanwhile I'm trying to log in on the athena10 system.
>>
>> I did userdel wdc and that enabled the Athena login screen to try and pull
>> from
>> my Athena account.
>>
>> When I log in, it gives me the error that my session ran for less than 10
>> seconds.
>> When I click on show details it says, "/mit/wdc/.xsession-errors could not
>> be opened."
>>
>> From another system, my .xsession-errors file does exist. It says:
>>
>> hanta-yo:~ wdc$ cat /mit/wdc/.xsession-errors
>> /etc/gdm/Xsession: Beginning session setup...
>> Setting IM through im-switch for locale=en_US.
>> Start IM through /etc/X11/xinit/xinput.d/all_ALL linked to
>> /etc/X11/xinit/xinput.d/default.
>> set: Variable name must begin with a letter.
>>
>> ----
>>
>> When I do a GNOME failsafe login I get a FLURRY of alerts:
>>
>> An error occurred while loading or saving configuration information for
>> evolution-alarm-notify. Some of your configuration settings may not work
>> properly.
>> Details: Failed to contact configuration server <explanation>
>> Details -1 IOR file /tmp/gconfd-wdc/lock/ior couldn ot be opened
>> successfully. no gconfd located: permission denied.
>> (Details repeat several times.)
>>
>> Similar alert for Nautilus, gnome-panel
>>
>> GConf Error (repeat of evolution-alarm-notify error).
>>
>> ----
>>
>> I thought that might be due to our not having done the gconf work. After
>> all I am logged in elsewhere. So I logged out of the other Athena system,
>> but that made no difference.
>>
>> The fail safe Gnome session gives me no panel. I had to log out by
>> creating a xterm launcher, and then su to root, and then killing X.
>>
>> ----
>>
>> A failsafe terminal session will let me in at all, and I can examine the
>> contents of my AFS home directory, and run commands.
>>
>> Issuing the "logout" command complains that the login shell is not my login
>> shell.
>> (This is a simple bug easily fixed, I believe.) I AM able to logout by
>> issuing the "exit" command.
>>
>>
>> -Bill
>>
>> ----
>> Important: IS&T IT staff will *NEVER* ask you for your password, nor will
>> MIT send you email requesting your password information. Please continue to
>> ignore any email messages that claim to require you to provide such
>> information.
>> ----
>>
>> William Cattey
>> Linux Platform Coordinator
>> MIT Information Services & Technology
>>
>> N42-040M, 617-253-0140, wdc@mit.edu
>> http://web.mit.edu/wdc/www/
>>
>>
>>
>
