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crashenx

Member

Registered: 2011-02-01

Posts: 8

[SOLVED]: KDM greeter abnormal termination when GreeterUID=kdm

Attempting to start kdm will yield the following messages in /var/log/errors.log if GreeterUID is not root in /usr/share/config/kdm/kdmrc:

Feb  3 19:01:47 localhost kdm: :0[3346]: Received unknown or unexpected command -2 from greeter
Feb  3 19:01:47 localhost kdm: :0[3346]: Abnormal termination of greeter for display :0, code 1, signal 0

Using strace I found that 3 attempts are made to connect to 127.0.0.1:6000. Each attemt returns ECONNREFUSED. After the 3rd attempt "kdmgreet: cannot connect to X se"... is reported.

Commenting out the following line in kdmrc:

ServerArgsLocal=-nolisten tcp

and doing another strace results in a successful connection but an immediate EACCESS on "var/run/xauth/A:..." followed by a read and write of "No protocol specified\n\0\0". After 3 failed attempts "kdmgreet: cannot connect to X se"... is reported.

How to successfully start kde without kdm:
- add startkde to .xinitrc and startx

How to successfully start kdm:
- comment out GreeterUID in kdmrc so it defaults to root and then start kdm

Attempts made to resolve issue:
- install all of kde-meta (initially only had kde-meta-kdebase)
- reinstall several packages including intel drivers, Xorg, mesa, kde-meta
- reinstall every package on the system
- Install hal, uninstal hal
- ensure dbus is running, try when dbus is stopped
- investigate /usr/share/config/kdm/kdmrc settings
- create a 10-monitor.conf file in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/, remove the file after no beneficial results
- check for udev running: ps -wef | grep udev (yields 3 processes)
- delete all .hidden directories I did not explicitly create/configure
- restart kde via /etc/rc.d/kdm restart, start kde via rc.conf, start kde via inittab

Hardware info:
Thinkpad Edge 14

Packages:
kde-meta-* 4.6-1.2
xf86-video-intel 2.14.0-1
xorg-server 1.9.4-1

Config Info:

snippet from /etc/passwd:

kdm:x:135:135::/var/lib/kdm:/bin/false

Thanks in advance!

SOLUTION:

The problems were permissions related. The "No protocol specified" error was from kdm not being able to read /etc/hosts. This was resolved by changing the permissions on /etc/hosts from 640 to 644. The other issue was that kdm could not read the xauth file it created in /var/run/xauth (I'm assuming after dropping privileges down to the kdm user). I initially fixed this by changing the permissions on the directory from 750 to 755, but I am not sure if this is good practice. I, therefore, changed the permissions back to 750 and created a directory kdm in /var/run. I set the owner and group to kdm and the permissions to 750. I then added the following line to the kdmrc file:

AuthDir=/var/run/kdm

Last edited by crashenx (2011-02-26 04:04:21)

greengold

Member

Registered: 2010-01-30

Posts: 199

Re: [SOLVED]: KDM greeter abnormal termination when GreeterUID=kdm

Now Im having the same problem. Too bad that crashenx's solution didn't work for me.
Anyone got some ideas?

thanks...

greengold

Member

Registered: 2010-01-30

Posts: 199

Re: [SOLVED]: KDM greeter abnormal termination when GreeterUID=kdm

fixed after kernel update. thanks developers!