From Bugzilla Helper: User-Agent: Mozilla/4.77 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.4.2-2 i686) After a normal upgrade from 7.0 to 7.1, executing the su command generates a "File size limit exceeded". I can log in as root and get this error by su'ing to another user. Same error logged in as user and su'ing to root. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1.login as root. 2.start a terminal window. 3.enter the su command. Actual Results: [root@guitunes /root]% su File size limit exceeded [root@guitunes /root]% Expected Results: It should have switched me to the user babcock. This same error message happens when I try to run the netscape email system. Netscape crashes and this error message appears. My log files seem awfully large: 4876952 loginlog 1388634 pacct 8917995 syslog but rerunning logrotate -f doesn't seem to clear them up.
A typo in the bug report. In Actual Results: The first line should read: [root@guitunes /root]% su babcock
I can't reproduce this. Please attach the output of "strace su babcock".
Created attachment 16410 [details] strace su babcock output
This looks weird, the xauth socket refcount seems to be getting too large. Does this still happen if you run "rm -rf /root/.xauth" as root?
After running "rm -rf /root/.xauth" as root, the first su babcock works. When I exit that shell, I get a "bus error" but it worked and I was babcock. However, the second run gets the file size error and the large unix:0 file reappeared. (> 40Mb) ??
Assigning to XFree86, since xauth seems to be doing something odd. Are you doing anything odd that might cause this?
Nothing that I know of. I have been using Red Hat Linux since last summer and not had the problem. I'll review my xconfiguration and see if I can pick up anything. It is interesting that I get the same error message when I try to run netscape now also. (But I can't strace the netscape command to find what file is causing it.)
I tried a reconfigure of the X-windows system and this did not help. It appears to be something about xauth that is causing this to happen. Any further help would be greatly appreciated. I'm still not able to fully use my 7.1 upgrade.
This problem is with my maximum file size as set somewhere. I have tried building a large file and it gives the same error message when it reaches the 40Mb size. Running bash as root can reset root's file size limit to unlimited. But I can't seem to set my user account's file size limit above 40000. No ulimit command is in .bash-profile for this account. Any other places that control the user's file size limit?
I found where the file size limit is being set to 40000. It is in the file /etc/security/limits.conf However, when I change that to 1000000, and reboot the system, I still get an error with the su command. Only now the file ~babcock/.xauth/refcount/root/guitunes/unix:0 is 1024000000 in size. So, it just keeps bumping this file up to this large size so that the next su command fails with the "File size limit exceeded".
The file that is causing this error: /home/babcock/.xauth/refcount/root/guitunes/unix:0 that is over 1Gb in size contains a cookie at the front and then is filled with zeros. Following is an octal dump of the file: guitunes % od unix:0 | more 0000000 020061 062471 031542 033067 031141 061065 063064 062460 0000020 033061 033463 062544 062060 031545 062465 031465 032471 0000040 061542 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 0000060 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 * 7502200000 guitunes % This file contains 1024000000 bytes. An xauth list gives the same cookie as this file contains. So somhow this file is not being closed properly when using the su command.
I upgraded from RedHat 7.0 to 7.1 yesterday and experienced this same exact problem: the xauth refcount file was as large as ulimit would let it be, and su would bus error upon exit, not cleaning up the file. I am pretty sure the problem is with pam_xauth trying to forward an invalid key returned from xauth. When I did an xauth list, there were many entries that were no longer valid (i.e. displays that no longer exist). By using xauth delete to empty my .Xauthority file, the refcount file problem went away and su works fine now. In hindsight, I should have saved a copy of my .Xauthority file, but it is gone now.
I tried a similar tactic. Here is the results of my xauth list: guitunes % xauth list guitunes/unix:0 MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 bcda56b0f12ac55555ab56f897c2cad0 guitunes:0 MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 bcda56b0f12ac55555ab56f897c2cad0 guitunes % When I did xauth remove unix:0, the first line went away and my su command worked ok! However, I couldn't do any x clients. Even an xhost + command said I didn't have authority to connect to the X server. So, I logged out and logged back in and the /unix:0 line reappeared in the .Xauthority file (xauth list), and x clients worked again, BUT su again fails. I can't seem to remove just the second display from the file. If I delete the .Xauthority file and log out, it is simply rebuilt when I log back in. So, I'm still stumped.
I was able to remove this problem. It took a reformat of my hard drive and a brand new installation of RedHat 7.1 su works fine now!