GDM cannot write to authorisation file

Bug #33132 reported by Melissa Draper
12
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
gdm (Baltix)
Invalid
Medium
Unassigned
gdm (Ubuntu)
Invalid
High
Ubuntu Desktop Bugs
nautilus (Ubuntu)
Invalid
Medium
Unassigned

Bug Description

I am unsure if these bugs are linked but my system is also afflicted with Bug #33130 in gdm (Ubuntu): "Dapper - $HOME/.dmrc ignored"

After bug #33130 appears and has been waved off, I then get the message:

"GDM could not write to your authorisation file. This could mean that you are out of disk space or that your home directory could not be opened for writing. In any case it is not possible to log in. Please contact your system administrator."

I can assure you that there is plenty of space on the partition. 19+gb in fact.

I can also state that if you type 'nautilus' from the command line, the default gnome background shows up. This could indicate that the problem is not with GDM, but possibly with nautilus.

Revision history for this message
Melissa Draper (melissa) wrote :

accidental mis-filing. should be in ubuntu, not baltix.

Changed in gdm:
status: Unconfirmed → Rejected
Revision history for this message
Dennis Kaarsemaker (dennis) wrote :

Is your /home on VFAT perhaps?

Revision history for this message
Melissa Draper (melissa) wrote :

No. ext3

I have kinda sorta got past this stage of the bug. $HOME had set itself to chmod757 somehow. Alas, fixing this back to 755 has not fixed my system. I now get a message about mkdtemp: private socket dir permission denied (note: may not be identical wording) which i have no idea what that means.

Revision history for this message
Sebastien Bacher (seb128) wrote :

the gdm task is enough

Changed in nautilus:
status: Unconfirmed → Rejected
Revision history for this message
Sebastien Bacher (seb128) wrote :

Thanks for your bug. What permissions does $HOME has? What permissions for /tmp? Do you have a $HOME/.Xauthority? Could you run ls -l on it an copy that to a comment?

Changed in gdm:
assignee: nobody → desktop-bugs
status: Unconfirmed → Needs Info
Revision history for this message
Andrew Zajac (arzajac) wrote :

Running flight 6, I just started getting this. I think the last few things I did was to install childsplay and gcompris. I also set up gdm to autologin my user at boot.

drwxrwxrwx 3 root root 4096 2006-03-29 14:06 home

emma@ubuntu:~$ ls -l /home
total 4
drwxrwxr-- 22 emma emma 4096 2006-04-04 08:34 emma

drwxrwxrwt 14 root root 4096 2006-04-04 08:57 tmp

emma@ubuntu:~$ ls -l .Xauthority
-rwxrwxrwx 1 emma emma 117 2006-04-02 08:22 .Xauthority

emma@ubuntu:~$ ls -l .dmrc
-rw-r--r-- 1 emma emma 26 2006-03-29 14:10 .dmrc

Revision history for this message
Sebastien Bacher (seb128) wrote :

Andrew, Melissa what message do you get exactly?

Revision history for this message
Melissa Draper (melissa) wrote :

I no longer have the problem, but the exact wording is still on a piece of paper here on my desk ;)

"User's $HOME /.dmrc file is being ignored. This prevents the default session and language from being saved. Fle should be owned by user and have 644 permissions. User's $HOME directory must be owned by user and not writable by other users"

There is a good chance something may have been launched with sudo instead of gksudo.

Revision history for this message
Melissa Draper (melissa) wrote :

Ok, that might have been the wrong transcript above:

"GDM could not write to your authorisation file. THis could mean you are out of disk space or that your home directory could not be opened for writing. In any case it is not possible to login. Please contact your system administrator."

Now that I understand the system more, I believe this bug is a direct result of bug 33130, the transcript for which is above.

Revision history for this message
Andrew Zajac (arzajac) wrote :

I get this:
User's $HOME /.dmrc file is being ignored. This prevents the default session and language from being saved. Fle should be owned by user and have 644 permissions. User's $HOME directory must be owned by user and not writable by other users"

I tried installing childsplay and gcompris from the live cd and could not reporduce the problem there.

Revision history for this message
Andrew Zajac (arzajac) wrote :

I changed the permissions of my home directory so that groups could not have write access and the problem went away.

Possibly, my young kids may have clicked around and changed the permissions of folders. The error message is however cryptic and not intuitive.

"User's $HOME directory must be owned by user and not writable by other users"

Why? Why should that prevent my session from starting up? And if it really is neccessary, it should offer the user the ability to change the permissions then and there.

Revision history for this message
Sebastien Bacher (seb128) wrote :

closing the bug, that's not a gdm issue but user or an another application changing the permission. Feel free to reopen if you get the issue again and figure how gdmrc gets the wrong permission

Changed in gdm:
status: Needs Info → Rejected
Revision history for this message
Andrew Zajac (arzajac) wrote :

If someone choses to make their home folder writable to another user, shouldn't there be a way to dissable this warning?

Should the warning be a little bit more verbose, too? It kills two birds with one stone and leads one to beleive that the system is broken.

Revision history for this message
Sebastien Bacher (seb128) wrote :

if you want a setting for that better to open an another bug (better if upstream since that's the right place), that's not the same issue

what is not verbose enough about the warning? It explains the possible reasons for that dialog clearly ...

Revision history for this message
Andrew Zajac (arzajac) wrote :

Ideally, there should be two different messages for either the user's home drive permissions, or the .dmrc file permissions.

For Dapper, can that message be changed to
"Either your home directory or the .dmrc file (a hidden file) in it is set to be writable by other users. This is insecure. This prevents the default session and language from being saved.

You can change the permissions of your home folder or of that file once you log into you session.

This warning will be displayed every time you log until the permissions are changed back."

Also, ideally, that dialog box should have the option of no longer being displayed.

So, should file a seperate bug updstream about that? Is changing the message feasable for Dapper?

Revision history for this message
Sebastien Bacher (seb128) wrote :

I doubt we will change the message for dapper, that's a detail and not really worth breaking the string freeze. Feel free to open a bug upstream and a new launchpad bug pointing to it though

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