Bug 433636

Summary: DBUS fails to start at all if an invalid config file is present
Product: [Fedora] Fedora Reporter: Robin Norwood <robin.norwood>
Component: dbusAssignee: David Zeuthen <davidz>
Status: CLOSED WONTFIX QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity: high Docs Contact:
Priority: high    
Version: 9CC: alsadi, gwirth79, mclasen
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Target Release: ---   
Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
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Fixed In Version: Doc Type: Bug Fix
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Last Closed: 2009-07-14 13:58:16 UTC Type: ---
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Embargoed:

Description Robin Norwood 2008-02-20 15:37:02 UTC
So, while working on PackageKit, I accidentally put an invalid conf file into
/etc/dbus-1/system.d

At the next boot, DBUS failed to start at all because of the configuration error
- I'm afraid I didn't write down the exact error, and it doesn't seem to have
made it into /var/log/messages, but the gist of it was that one of my 'policy'
sections didn't have any of the required parameters ('at_console', 'user', etc.)

Since dbus not running *also* seems to cause GDM to crash, and dbus is becoming
more integrated into the OS every day, I suggest it should be more tolerant of
configuration errors - just skip loading that configuration file and continue,
instead of failing to start.  Granted that this won't happen unless some yahoo
is mucking about in the config files without knowing what he's doing, but still.

Comment 1 Robin Norwood 2008-02-20 15:46:40 UTC
Hrm.  I was wrong about GDM crashing, I misread my logs.  Something else broke,
though.

Comment 2 Bug Zapper 2008-05-14 05:18:15 UTC
Changing version to '9' as part of upcoming Fedora 9 GA.
More information and reason for this action is here:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/HouseKeeping

Comment 3 Muayyad Alsadi 2008-09-18 03:38:52 UTC
not just invalid confs, actually any conf will break it

touch /etc/dbus-1/session.d/test.conf
/etc/init.d/messagebus restart

in my case GDM did not receive its configuration (no background is shown)

Comment 4 Gus Wirth 2009-01-06 18:05:45 UTC
This same behavior is also exhibited in Fedora 10, updated to latest packages as of 01/06/2009, in particular dbus-1.2.4-2.

Several packages create empty files as place holders which then cause the system to fail to startup properly. These empty files are:

org.gnome.CPUFreqSelector.conf
org.freedesktop.PackageKitAptBackend.conf
org.freedesktop.PackageKitTestBackend.conf

Removing or relocating empty files allows the system to startup properly.

Comment 5 Bug Zapper 2009-06-09 23:36:10 UTC
This message is a reminder that Fedora 9 is nearing its end of life.
Approximately 30 (thirty) days from now Fedora will stop maintaining
and issuing updates for Fedora 9.  It is Fedora's policy to close all
bug reports from releases that are no longer maintained.  At that time
this bug will be closed as WONTFIX if it remains open with a Fedora 
'version' of '9'.

Package Maintainer: If you wish for this bug to remain open because you
plan to fix it in a currently maintained version, simply change the 'version' 
to a later Fedora version prior to Fedora 9's end of life.

Bug Reporter: Thank you for reporting this issue and we are sorry that 
we may not be able to fix it before Fedora 9 is end of life.  If you 
would still like to see this bug fixed and are able to reproduce it 
against a later version of Fedora please change the 'version' of this 
bug to the applicable version.  If you are unable to change the version, 
please add a comment here and someone will do it for you.

Although we aim to fix as many bugs as possible during every release's 
lifetime, sometimes those efforts are overtaken by events.  Often a 
more recent Fedora release includes newer upstream software that fixes 
bugs or makes them obsolete.

The process we are following is described here: 
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/HouseKeeping

Comment 6 Bug Zapper 2009-07-14 13:58:16 UTC
Fedora 9 changed to end-of-life (EOL) status on 2009-07-10. Fedora 9 is 
no longer maintained, which means that it will not receive any further 
security or bug fix updates. As a result we are closing this bug.

If you can reproduce this bug against a currently maintained version of 
Fedora please feel free to reopen this bug against that version.

Thank you for reporting this bug and we are sorry it could not be fixed.