bug#44944: Unable to log into X session via gdm

[Maxim Cournoyer]

Hi,

Danny Milosavljevic <dannym@scratchpost.org> writes:

> The latest guix system reconfigure (of yesterday) left me unable to login into
> my X session.  guix system rollback DID NOT fix it.
>
> I would enter my password and it would "try" to login and return right back to
> the gdm login screen.
>
> I've since removed gdm from my OS configuration (because I have to do actual
> *work* on this computer), but I think it would have been enough to just
> chown /var/lib/gdm and rm ~/.xsession-errors (!) in order to make it work
> again.
>
> Does that mean that user ids are non-reproducible?
>
> Why not have user_id = hash(user_name) ?  Then they *are* reproducible.

That'd be cool, but how would you implement such a hash, that returns
something fixed between 0 and 1024?  That doesn't sound feasible,
although I'm no hash function expert.

> (I've tried finding the spot where those user accounts are generated/updated
> but so far have been unable to)
>
> Anyway, this is just to record the problem and workaround.  I won't do
> further research on this problem on it on this computer.
>
> The "gdm" system account is gone by now because I've removed gdm from the
> OS configuration--and I don't plan on adding it ever again.

I experienced the exact same problem as you.  My topmost /var/lib/gdm
directory has the correct permissions, but it contains stale entries
that were created in the past by a different GDM user whose ID is no
longer the same:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
/var/lib/gdm:
total 616
drwx------ 1 gdm      gdm          46 Sep 16 09:09 .
drwxr-xr-x 1 root     root        222 May  7 20:40 ..
drwxr-xr-x 1 nixbld04 opendht      62 Dec  7  2021 .cache
drwx------ 1 nixbld04 opendht      44 Dec  7  2021 .config
-rw------- 1      955 gdm     1146880 Sep 16 09:09 core
drwxr-xr-x 1 nixbld04 opendht      10 Dec  7  2021 .local

/var/lib/gdm/.cache:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 1 nixbld04 opendht  62 Dec  7  2021 .
drwx------ 1 gdm      gdm      46 Sep 16 09:09 ..
drwxr-xr-x 1 nixbld04 opendht 384 Dec  7  2021 fontconfig
drwxr-xr-x 1 nixbld04 opendht   6 Dec  7  2021 ibus
drwxr-xr-x 1 nixbld04 opendht  34 Dec  7  2021 mesa_shader_cache

/var/lib/gdm/.cache/fontconfig:
total 84
drwxr-xr-x 1 nixbld04 opendht   384 Dec  7  2021 .
drwxr-xr-x 1 nixbld04 opendht    62 Dec  7  2021 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 nixbld04 opendht 18496 Dec  7  2021 
23ef510a04af7dd5ac1a2dbd06c4afd1-le64.cache-7
-rw-r--r-- 1 nixbld04 opendht   272 Dec  7  2021 
269249ae71e4e445ff7f16f21dcb6de5-le64.cache-7
-rw-r--r-- 1 nixbld04 opendht   256 Dec  7  2021 
50fa4f3b9c91fead50cbfcdae3296c45-le64.cache-7
-rw-r--r-- 1 nixbld04 opendht 50584 Dec  7  2021 
a927202dec7f348d7a0569dcad9f19a8-le64.cache-7
-rw-r--r-- 1 nixbld04 opendht   200 Dec  7  2021 CACHEDIR.TAG

/var/lib/gdm/.cache/ibus:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 1 nixbld04 opendht  6 Dec  7  2021 .
drwxr-xr-x 1 nixbld04 opendht 62 Dec  7  2021 ..
drwxr-xr-x 1 nixbld04 opendht 16 Dec  7  2021 bus

/var/lib/gdm/.cache/ibus/bus:
total 172
drwxr-xr-x 1 nixbld04 opendht     16 Dec  7  2021 .
drwxr-xr-x 1 nixbld04 opendht      6 Dec  7  2021 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 nixbld04 opendht 173300 Dec  7  2021 registry

/var/lib/gdm/.cache/mesa_shader_cache:
total 36
drwxr-xr-x 1 nixbld04 opendht      34 Dec  7  2021 .
drwxr-xr-x 1 nixbld04 opendht      62 Dec  7  2021 ..
drwxr-xr-x 1 nixbld04 opendht      76 Dec  7  2021 02
drwxr-xr-x 1 nixbld04 opendht      76 Dec  7  2021 72
drwxr-xr-x 1 nixbld04 opendht      76 Dec  7  2021 88
drwxr-xr-x 1 nixbld04 opendht      76 Dec  7  2021 a3
drwxr-xr-x 1 nixbld04 opendht      76 Dec  7  2021 c4
drwxr-xr-x 1 nixbld04 opendht      76 Dec  7  2021 f9
-rw-r--r-- 1 nixbld04 opendht 1310728 Dec  7  2021 index

/var/lib/gdm/.cache/mesa_shader_cache/02:
total 4
drwxr-xr-x 1 nixbld04 opendht  76 Dec  7  2021 .
drwxr-xr-x 1 nixbld04 opendht  34 Dec  7  2021 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 nixbld04 opendht 868 Dec  7  2021 
f0edfe0ef96096640b39ff4d2786b503a60a43

/var/lib/gdm/.cache/mesa_shader_cache/72:
total 4
drwxr-xr-x 1 nixbld04 opendht  76 Dec  7  2021 .
drwxr-xr-x 1 nixbld04 opendht  34 Dec  7  2021 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 nixbld04 opendht 989 Dec  7  2021 
7cd650943c7a3136f424df6a67c7897f922307

/var/lib/gdm/.cache/mesa_shader_cache/88:
total 4
drwxr-xr-x 1 nixbld04 opendht  76 Dec  7  2021 .
drwxr-xr-x 1 nixbld04 opendht  34 Dec  7  2021 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 nixbld04 opendht 755 Dec  7  2021 
d03ceaeebc55f4b3c972e855775b2c21381b60

/var/lib/gdm/.cache/mesa_shader_cache/a3:
total 4
drwxr-xr-x 1 nixbld04 opendht   76 Dec  7  2021 .
drwxr-xr-x 1 nixbld04 opendht   34 Dec  7  2021 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 nixbld04 opendht 1187 Dec  7  2021 
2d688084f93805f8921dab8d7a8de5e0f1bc66

/var/lib/gdm/.cache/mesa_shader_cache/c4:
total 4
drwxr-xr-x 1 nixbld04 opendht  76 Dec  7  2021 .
drwxr-xr-x 1 nixbld04 opendht  34 Dec  7  2021 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 nixbld04 opendht 523 Dec  7  2021 
93ffa46c262472c8d01161a581304a790b71ff

/var/lib/gdm/.cache/mesa_shader_cache/f9:
total 4
drwxr-xr-x 1 nixbld04 opendht  76 Dec  7  2021 .
drwxr-xr-x 1 nixbld04 opendht  34 Dec  7  2021 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 nixbld04 opendht 742 Dec  7  2021 
14f5ad63c0e5edcc46473d056d0b5e38415f99

/var/lib/gdm/.config:
total 0
drwx------ 1 nixbld04 opendht  44 Dec  7  2021 .
drwx------ 1 gdm      gdm      46 Sep 16 09:09 ..
drwx------ 1 nixbld04 opendht  26 Dec  7  2021 gnome-session
drwx------ 1 nixbld04 opendht   6 Dec  7  2021 ibus
drwx------ 1 nixbld04 opendht 500 Dec  7  2021 pulse

/var/lib/gdm/.config/gnome-session:
total 0
drwx------ 1 nixbld04 opendht 26 Dec  7  2021 .
drwx------ 1 nixbld04 opendht 44 Dec  7  2021 ..
drwx------ 1 nixbld04 opendht  0 Dec  7  2021 saved-session

/var/lib/gdm/.config/gnome-session/saved-session:
total 0
drwx------ 1 nixbld04 opendht  0 Dec  7  2021 .
drwx------ 1 nixbld04 opendht 26 Dec  7  2021 ..

/var/lib/gdm/.config/ibus:
total 0
drwx------ 1 nixbld04 opendht  6 Dec  7  2021 .
drwx------ 1 nixbld04 opendht 44 Dec  7  2021 ..
drwx------ 1 nixbld04 opendht 78 Dec  8  2021 bus

/var/lib/gdm/.config/ibus/bus:
total 4
drwx------ 1 nixbld04 opendht  78 Dec  8  2021 .
drwx------ 1 nixbld04 opendht   6 Dec  7  2021 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 nixbld04 opendht 380 Dec  8  2021 
c096feaf19ce3a0a450915775e7ec8e3-unix-0

/var/lib/gdm/.config/pulse:
total 64
drwx------ 1 nixbld04 opendht   500 Dec  7  2021 .
drwx------ 1 nixbld04 opendht    44 Dec  7  2021 ..
-rw------- 1 nixbld04 opendht 36864 Dec  7  2021 
c096feaf19ce3a0a450915775e7ec8e3-card-database.tdb
-rw------- 1 nixbld04 opendht     1 Dec  8  2021 
c096feaf19ce3a0a450915775e7ec8e3-default-sink
-rw------- 1 nixbld04 opendht     1 Dec  8  2021 
c096feaf19ce3a0a450915775e7ec8e3-default-source
-rw------- 1 nixbld04 opendht 12288 Dec  8  2021 
c096feaf19ce3a0a450915775e7ec8e3-device-volumes.tdb
-rw------- 1 nixbld04 opendht   696 Dec  7  2021 
c096feaf19ce3a0a450915775e7ec8e3-stream-volumes.tdb
-rw------- 1 nixbld04 opendht   256 Dec  7  2021 cookie

/var/lib/gdm/.local:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 1 nixbld04 opendht 10 Dec  7  2021 .
drwx------ 1 gdm      gdm     46 Sep 16 09:09 ..
drwxr-xr-x 1 nixbld04 opendht 72 Dec  7  2021 share

/var/lib/gdm/.local/share:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 1 nixbld04 opendht 72 Dec  7  2021 .
drwxr-xr-x 1 nixbld04 opendht 10 Dec  7  2021 ..
drwx------ 1 nixbld04 opendht  0 Dec  7  2021 applications
drwx------ 1 nixbld04 opendht  0 Dec  7  2021 gnome-shell
drwxr-xr-x 1 nixbld04 opendht 82 Dec  7  2021 icc
drwx------ 1 nixbld04 opendht  0 Dec  7  2021 sounds
drwxr-xr-x 1 nixbld04 opendht 96 Dec  8  2021 xorg

/var/lib/gdm/.local/share/applications:
total 0
drwx------ 1 nixbld04 opendht  0 Dec  7  2021 .
drwxr-xr-x 1 nixbld04 opendht 72 Dec  7  2021 ..

/var/lib/gdm/.local/share/gnome-shell:
total 0
drwx------ 1 nixbld04 opendht  0 Dec  7  2021 .
drwxr-xr-x 1 nixbld04 opendht 72 Dec  7  2021 ..

/var/lib/gdm/.local/share/icc:
total 4
drwxr-xr-x 1 nixbld04 opendht   82 Dec  7  2021 .
drwxr-xr-x 1 nixbld04 opendht   72 Dec  7  2021 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 nixbld04 opendht 1448 Dec  7  2021 
edid-5add33c88281761e832ba5f60ec1628e.icc

/var/lib/gdm/.local/share/sounds:
total 0
drwx------ 1 nixbld04 opendht  0 Dec  7  2021 .
drwxr-xr-x 1 nixbld04 opendht 72 Dec  7  2021 ..

/var/lib/gdm/.local/share/xorg:
total 132
drwxr-xr-x 1 nixbld04 opendht    96 Dec  8  2021 .
drwxr-xr-x 1 nixbld04 opendht    72 Dec  7  2021 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 nixbld04 opendht 52932 Dec  8  2021 Xorg.0.log
-rw-r--r-- 1 nixbld04 opendht 53878 Dec  8  2021 Xorg.0.log.old
-rw-r--r-- 1 nixbld04 opendht 10481 Dec  8  2021 Xorg.1.log
-rw-r--r-- 1 nixbld04 opendht 10481 Dec  8  2021 Xorg.1.log.old
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

We have some logic in %gdm-activation that was supposed to fix that, but
it doesn't kick in, because it has some optimization to not recurse if
the top dir has the correct permissions, and since d429878daf3 the top
directory permissions are always controlled at system activation time
(and this must happen before the gdm activation script runs).

I'll follow-up with a patch that puts /var/lib/gdm on a tmpfs.  This
should avoid many pitfalls people have had.

Thanks,

Maxim