Bug 1304885

Summary: Fails to start because grantpt fails with EPERM
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 Reporter: Christopher Page <cpage>
Component: gnome-terminalAssignee: Debarshi Ray <debarshir>
Status: CLOSED INSUFFICIENT_DATA QA Contact: Desktop QE <desktop-qa-list>
Severity: high Docs Contact:
Priority: unspecified    
Version: 8.0CC: cpage, tpelka
Target Milestone: rc   
Target Release: 8.3   
Hardware: x86_64   
OS: Linux   
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Last Closed: 2020-06-18 07:40:56 UTC Type: Bug
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Description Christopher Page 2016-02-04 21:58:56 UTC 
Description of problem: 

After GUI login, attempts to launch gnome-terminal generate the following error:

"There was an error creating the child process for this terminal.

grantpt failed: Operation not permitted." 

Konsole and xterm launch normally.


Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): 3.14.3


How reproducible: 100% on all systems tested so far (5+).


Steps to Reproduce:
1. Log in to GUI session.
2. Launch "Terminal" either by right-click or from menu.
3.

Actual results:

Terminal launches with above error and no shell prompt.

Expected results:

Terminal launches without error.

Additional info: mount entry for devpts:

devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime,seclabel,gid=5,mode=620,ptmxmode=000)
Comment 2 Debarshi Ray 2016-05-11 14:11:51 UTC 
Is /dev/pts properly mounted?
Comment 3 Debarshi Ray 2020-02-11 16:32:20 UTC 
Could you please strace /usr/libexec/gnome-terminal-server and all its child processes? eg., the following command will create a file called 'slog' with the strace logs:
$ strace -f -oslog /usr/libexec/gnome-terminal-server
Comment 4 Debarshi Ray 2020-02-11 16:34:10 UTC 
RHEL 7 is approaching its Extended Life Cycle Support phase. Given the non-critical nature of this bug, it's not fit for RHEL 7 anymore. Let's try to fix this for RHEL 8.
Comment 5 Debarshi Ray 2020-06-18 07:40:56 UTC 
Closing due to lack of sufficient data to act upon this report.
Comment 6 Christopher Page 2021-11-18 03:52:12 UTC 
(In reply to Debarshi Ray from comment #2)
> Is /dev/pts properly mounted?

Was, yes (very very belatedly).

I believe that the issue ultimately came down to a UID mismatch between what the package expected starting with this version, and what /etc/passwd thought.  I no longer recall which user was involved though.
Comment 7 Christopher Page 2021-11-18 03:53:05 UTC 
(In reply to Debarshi Ray from comment #3)
> Could you please strace /usr/libexec/gnome-terminal-server and all its child
> processes? eg., the following command will create a file called 'slog' with
> the strace logs:
> $ strace -f -oslog /usr/libexec/gnome-terminal-server

See above note.  Sadly, I no longer have access to the problematic system or the ability to reproduce.