[7703] in testers
Re: My Athena session will not run.
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (William Cattey)
Wed Sep 17 16:03:34 2008
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.64L.0809171554250.11949@vinegar-pot.mit.edu>
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From: William Cattey <wdc@MIT.EDU>
Date: Wed, 17 Sep 2008 16:02:48 -0400
To: Quentin Smith <quentin@mit.edu>
Cool.
Now all we need to do is figure out why things didn't work at all
moments ago,
but then started to once the default session was primed.
On Sep 17, 2008, at 3:55 PM, Quentin Smith wrote:
> 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/
>>
