Bug 694659 - gdm-simple-greeter prevents login for specific users
Summary: gdm-simple-greeter prevents login for specific users
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED WONTFIX
Alias: None
Product: Fedora
Classification: Fedora
Component: gdm
Version: 14
Hardware: x86_64
OS: Linux
unspecified
medium
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Ray Strode [halfline]
QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2011-04-07 21:14 UTC by Brian Fristensky
Modified: 2012-08-16 15:34 UTC (History)
3 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2012-08-16 15:34:18 UTC
Type: ---


Attachments (Terms of Use)

Description Brian Fristensky 2011-04-07 21:14:07 UTC
Description of problem: After several logins, gdm-simple-greeter begins to exclude users, one by one, from logging in. That is, at first, all users can log in. Soon, most users cannot login. Eventually only one user is
allowed to login. This particular user is, on both machines I've tested,
the user created at the end of the Fedora install process, when it asks
you to create at least one user.


Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
Fedora 13 and 14


How reproducible:
This initially happened on a Fedora 13 server that has been in production
since September. System has been kept up to date using yum.

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Install Fedora 14 on a spare laptop from DVD
2. create users with System --> Users and Groups
3. After several logins, users begin to be excluded from logging in. 

I thought maybe the problem would go away in F14, but it appears to have
carried over from F13.
  
Actual results:
What DOES happen is that you click on the user's name, and the
greeter disappears a moment, and then returns to
the list of users, without giving a password prompt.

This problem even applies to Other. If you click on Other, you should
get a prompt that would let you type in your userid, but instead, get kicked back to the simple-greeter.

This means that there are some users who cannot login at the console.
The bizarre thing is that some other users are not affected.

Expected results:
What is supposed to happen is that you click on a user's name, the greeter
window changes to a login prompt, and you type in your password.

Additional info:
For example, if user 'sally' clicks on her userid at the console on computer1, we see the following messages in /var/log/secure

Mar 27 10:35:03 computer1 pam: gdm-password[8973]:
pam_unix(gdm-password:auth):
conversation failed
Mar 27 10:35:03 computer1 pam: gdm-password[8973]:
pam_unix(gdm-password:auth):
auth could not identify password for [sally]
Mar 27 10:35:03 computer1 pam: gdm-password[8973]: gkr-pam: no password is
available for user


There is in fact a password for this user, because the user can login
at the command line by ssh. The entries in /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow look comparable for all users.

This problem started with a single user, and then over time, other
users became affected.

Notably, all users CAN login at on our Linux Terminal Server Project
X-terminal. LTSP runs ldm, rather than gdm, and just has a simple
box for typing in your userid. It does not use gdm-simple-greeter.


Is it possible that PAM keeps some sort of list of data for different
users, and that this list has become corrupted? I don't really know anything about PAM.

(Note: I have attempted to turn off the simple-greeter, but there are
documented bugs in the simple-greeter that make this option impossible in Fedora 13).

Comment 1 Fedora Admin XMLRPC Client 2011-06-21 15:32:28 UTC
This package has changed ownership in the Fedora Package Database.  Reassigning to the new owner of this component.

Comment 2 Fedora Admin XMLRPC Client 2011-06-21 15:34:27 UTC
This package has changed ownership in the Fedora Package Database.  Reassigning to the new owner of this component.

Comment 3 Fedora Admin XMLRPC Client 2011-06-21 15:37:11 UTC
This package has changed ownership in the Fedora Package Database.  Reassigning to the new owner of this component.

Comment 4 Fedora Admin XMLRPC Client 2011-06-21 15:40:25 UTC
This package has changed ownership in the Fedora Package Database.  Reassigning to the new owner of this component.

Comment 5 Fedora Admin XMLRPC Client 2011-06-21 15:49:53 UTC
This package has changed ownership in the Fedora Package Database.  Reassigning to the new owner of this component.

Comment 6 Fedora Admin XMLRPC Client 2011-06-21 15:52:25 UTC
This package has changed ownership in the Fedora Package Database.  Reassigning to the new owner of this component.

Comment 7 Fedora Admin XMLRPC Client 2011-06-21 15:54:54 UTC
This package has changed ownership in the Fedora Package Database.  Reassigning to the new owner of this component.

Comment 8 Fedora Admin XMLRPC Client 2011-06-21 15:56:08 UTC
This package has changed ownership in the Fedora Package Database.  Reassigning to the new owner of this component.

Comment 9 Jayson Vaughn 2011-07-03 05:16:13 UTC
Hello,
Thank you for the bug report.  If you are still suffering from this problem, please provide us with the following information to help us troubleshoot this bug further:

1) current rpm version of gdm
2) attach /var/log/secure before and after a user disappears off the list
3) /var/log/gdm/:0-greeter.log
4) /var/log/gdm/:0.log

Thanks.



-- 
Fedora Bugzappers volunteer triage team
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers

Comment 10 Fedora End Of Life 2012-08-16 15:34:20 UTC
This message is a notice that Fedora 14 is now at end of life. Fedora 
has stopped maintaining and issuing updates for Fedora 14. It is 
Fedora's policy to close all bug reports from releases that are no 
longer maintained.  At this time, all open bugs with a Fedora 'version'
of '14' have been closed as WONTFIX.

(Please note: Our normal process is to give advanced warning of this 
occurring, but we forgot to do that. A thousand apologies.)

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