"power down" request fails on 9.04; logout instead

I can confirm. Ubuntu 9.04 with a lab of 20 machines. My symptoms are the same as the reported bug.

I can also confirm this. Worked fine under intrepid in my 29 computers lab, now doesn't work anymore after upgrading to Jaunty. :-(

Does anyone at least have a workaround/fix/patch or any tricks to make it work? School starts next week so it'd be nice to have this working somehow!

Thanks!

I can also confirm. We tried also with a fresh install.

I can also confirm this bug. Ubuntu 9.04 with a lab of 1 server and 12 clients.

The relevant source code line is:
  QProcess::startDetached( "gdm-signal -h" ); // Gnome shutdown

The first problem with that is that gdm-signal in the "powermanagement-interface" package, which isn't preinstalled in a standard Ubuntu installation.
The second problem is that even if one installs that package, gdm-signal -h seems to no longer work.

A simple workaround is to not install the powermanagement-interface package, but to create a /usr/bin/gdm-signal script instead with the following contents:
#!/bin/sh
gnome-power-cmd shutdown
(don't forget to chmod +x the script)

Unfortunately, gnome-power-cmd is no longer there in Karmic.
Someone should ask the gnome people for a stable way to poweroff without having sudo priviledges and without modifying the sudoers file. :)

Good work

Can you confirm it's still happening in Karmic ?
I'd suspect that with the new gdm it's probably even worse but would appreciate confirmation of that.

I think I found a better method, via d-bus.

The attached "reboot.py" works for me on Karmic/Gnome, could someone report if it works on other versions/DEs?
(i.e. if "python reboot.py" reboots the PC without needing root privileges).

If it works, I'll try to send a debdiff for iTalc.

Better yet, try the following on a client:

1) Ensure that you *don't* have the package "powermanagement-interface" installed (which provides `gdm-signal`).

2) Copy the attached file to /usr/bin/gdm-signal, and make it executable:
sudo cp ~/gdm-signal /usr/bin
sudo chmod +x /usr/bin/gdm-signal

3) *Temporarily*, remove the executable attribute from gnome-session-save, which is called by iTalc and overrides the shutdown command (remember to restore it after the test):
sudo chmod -x /usr/bin/gnome-session-save

4) Then start iTalc normally on the server and try to reboot or shutdown the client. Hopefully it should work (it does for me).

Sending the attachement, which I forgot... :(

I'm attaching a patch which makes iTalc call the gnome SessionManager via dbus for logout / reboot / shutdown. Now iTalc works properly for me on Ubuntu Karmic (and it should also work for at least Jaunty and Lucid).

If anyone wants to try the patch, I've uploaded a Karmic package in this ppa: https://launchpad.net/~ts.sch.gr/+archive/proposed

This bug was fixed in the package italc - 1:1.0.9.1-0ubuntu18

---------------
italc (1:1.0.9.1-0ubuntu18) lucid; urgency=low

  * Add patch to iTalc to use DBUS calls for gnome (LP: #367960)
 -- Stephane Graber <email address hidden> Tue, 09 Feb 2010 09:38:13 -0500