Arch Linux

radioboy

Member

Registered: 2011-08-04

Posts: 4

Fresh install: can't login with user to tty anymore, root works ok.

Hi!
I'm new to Arch. I decided to try it so I installed the i686 core image in Virtualbox 4.0.12
under Ubuntu 11.04, with no issues, following both the official install guide and the beginners' guide.
After performing the complete upgrade step, I created a first user (david) with
the default configuration as shown in the guide, and added it to the wheel group.

As can be seen in the file /var/log/auth.log (http://pastebin.com/bkTLuJrz),
I logged in to the new user account shortly after its creation (13:19:33). This worked fine.
After logging off about two minutes later, and trying to log in once more, I found I was no
longer able to gain access. Every next try ended in an automatic logoff 2 or 3 seconds
after inserting the correct password, as can be seen starting from 13:29:41.
No message appeared in auth.log or on screen, and I have been unable to find any sort
of printed hints with a reason in other log files.
I have had no problems logging in as root, besides what seems a possibly similar situation
as seen at 13:30:36 (I don't remember, it could have been a quit test followed by a quick logoff via ctrl-D).

I tried this solution https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=122348
(they suggest the disk may be full), but that's not my case. Here is the result of "df -h":
http://pastebin.com/dKHnW91R

I then tried alternatively adding these lines (only one per try) at the end of
the /etc/security/access.conf file.
+ : david : tty2
+ : (wheel) : LOCAL
I tried logging in to tty2 with the first one, naturally. No success in either case.

Then, I created a new user with the same default options as the first one, but I could never log in,
I was again being thrown out just after inserting the password.
I also tried changing the user passwords, and deleting the .bash* files in /home/david.
Putting a short message to show at login using echo in the last line of /home/david/.bashrc
(the default one created by Arch) succeeded in showing it just before the log off.
Entering to fallback mode made no difference, and trying to log in with only one (different)
account at a time doesn't change anything either. Same trying other tty terminals.

Just to be very clear, I haven't installed X nor sound support.
And just in case (although I suspect it's totally irrelevant for this issue), on boot I'm getting a
message saying my network settings are deprecated, and that I have to check rc.conf.
I don't know what else I could try. Any hints?

EDIT: I ran grep -E " 13:[12][0-9]" /var/log/* to see the lines of the logs, in the range of time
when things got weird, in case I could find any hint of time-correlated stuff:
http://pastebin.com/fTakKwrY
I installed bash-completion. I tried removing it, but the problem persists.

pacman -Qdt throws:
linux--atm 2.5.1-2
sqlite3 3.7.7.1-1

Some other relevant files:
/etc/inittab
http://pastebin.com/x0S5huRp

/etc/passwd
http://pastebin.com/TFWrcFvd

/etc/group
http://pastebin.com/gwd4Zwwc

/etc/shadow (with some modified data in case it's somewhat sensitive)
http://pastebin.com/eh1Te3LB

/etc/security/access.conf
http://pastebin.com/LRks1KET

/etc/sudoers
http://pastebin.com/KiWdqg9P

I have 1893 MB of base memory and 128 MB of video memory dedicated to the Arch virtual machine.

Last edited by radioboy (2011-08-06 00:42:53)

ewaller

Administrator

From: Pasadena, CA

Registered: 2009-07-13

Posts: 20,612

Re: Fresh install: can't login with user to tty anymore, root works ok.

Welcome to Arch; and a thanks for a reasonable first post -- it most definitely shows the initiative of an arch user.  As a moderator, good job.

Let's look at some of the basic stuff...

Could you post the output of mount   ??
As root, what happens if you try ls -la /home/david
As root, what happens if you try su david
If that works, what happens if you then try cd  followed by ls -la  ??

---

Nothing is too wonderful to be true, if it be consistent with the laws of nature -- Michael Faraday
The shortest way to ruin a country is to give power to demagogues.— Dionysius of Halicarnassus
---
How to Ask Questions the Smart Way

radioboy

Member

Registered: 2011-08-04

Posts: 4

Re: Fresh install: can't login with user to tty anymore, root works ok.

Welcome to Arch; and a thanks for a reasonable first post -- it most definitely shows the initiative of an arch user.  As a moderator, good job.

Let's look at some of the basic stuff...

Could you post the output of mount   ??
As root, what happens if you try ls -la /home/david
As root, what happens if you try su david
If that works, what happens if you then try cd  followed by ls -la  ??

Thanks a lot!
su david didn't work, I was sent back to root as if I had only typed the enter key.
However, when I wanted to do the same in an Ubuntu console in order to check something
for a comparison, I discovered something fascinating:
I can no longer log in using *any* console, using gnome-terminal or any tty in Ubuntu!
So I think I'll be back when I get this sorted in the first place, but I will be checking here
just in case someone has some cross-distribution general advice on this issue.

Last edited by radioboy (2011-08-06 01:46:40)

radioboy

Member

Registered: 2011-08-04

Posts: 4

Re: Fresh install: can't login with user to tty anymore, root works ok.

Brief update: due to time limitations I had to delete the virtual machine and reinstall Ubuntu, since the issue had rendered the system unusable to me. Although this means I can no longer reproduce the problem, a bit of reading some time later (http://lkml.org/lkml/2011/10/6/317) suggested to me that it might have been a faulty Virtualbox kernel module. Thanks for all the help! Currently I'm enjoying Archbang in a dedicated partition and spending more and more time with it!