[CLUE-Cert] Couple of SuSE questions

Lynn Danielson Lynn.Danielson at clue.denver.co.us
Fri Dec 8 08:27:51 MST 2000


Sean LeBlanc wrote: 
> One: The user (not root) that was created during install can no longer log in
> via normal X login...it accepts user and pass, then proceeds as normally, but
> before it gets to desktop, it bounces back to login screen again.  I can 
> Ctrl-Alt-F1 and log in as that user and get to CLI, but no GUI.  ...
> I looked in /var/log/messages ..., are there better places to look? 

There should be an .xsession-errors file (or something like that) in the
home directory of the user you were trying to login as.  This sounds like
there's a problem with one of your environment/initialization scripts.
I'd start with looking at those related to X, e.g., .xinitrc, .Xsession or
pretty much anything beginning with .X or .x.  If you don't have these 
files in your local directory, X is probably reading your default "system"
files -- /etc/X11 is a good place to start looking for these.  You might
also look under /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xinit and thereabouts.

Can you start an X session ok as root?  If not, then try running sax or
isax or whatever X configuration tool you prefer and reconfigure X.  Try
a lower resolution and color depth.  If you can start an X session as
root without problems, then I'd look at root's initialization scripts,
i.e, .X*, .x*, .*rc, etc. and compare them to your users.

> Two: I cannot seem to get a normal user created...that is, I use Yast to put
> one in, and I can log in, but for this case, it just freezes after login.
> I have to go over to another console, log in as root, and kill off the session
> in order to get out.  Are there special considerations for users that need to
> be done in order to allow log in via GUI  that I need to do? And again, with
> these "new" users created, I can login also via CLI method, and no issues
> there.

When you create a new user, default files are usually copied from /etc/skel
into the users newly created home directory.  If these are hosed or have
gotten corrupted some how, it might explain the problem you're having.

Try creating a new user from scratch.  Add a new entry for the user in
/etc/passwd and /etc/shadow, create a home directory for that user and
as root chown that home directory with the users uid and gid.  As root
you can set the password for the user or simply leave the encrypted
password field empty in the shadow file to start out with no password
for that user.  Hopefully, this will produce different results, but it's
hard to say for sure.
 
> And here's a general X question: I have the GUI login screen up and running.
> If I go to another virtual term, log in, and then try startx...it fails,
> because of the other term using the same display that startx defaults to, no?

Yes, your default display (:0) is typically started on virtual terminal
7 (Ctrl-Alt-F7).  You should be able to start another X session on display
:8 by passing :1 to X.  If you use :1 as the first argument of your startx
script, it should pass it on to X.  

Hope this helps.

Lynn Danielson



More information about the clue-cert mailing list