[SOLVED] Autologin causes hang on tty1

pleearcher · 2014-02-23 01:19:19

Greetings all.

Loving Arch Linux and working my way through installation.

I have hit a problem and searches of the internet and these forums have not yielded a resolution (for all the hiccups I've had, this is the first item I haven't been able to solve from the wiki, forums, or internet. Some EXCELLENT documentation online for Arch Linux!).

I followed the instructions carefully (or so I thought) at https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Au … al_console to set up an automatic login for a user account. Unfortunately when I enable this feature (create the file with the lines inside as specified), my login after reboot "hangs". I can switch to tty2 (alt-F2) and log in just fine (I only set up autologin for tty1...fortunately!).

I have triple checked my file for typing errors, and have been looking into this problem for a couple of hours now and I just cannot figure out what I am doing wrong. Anyone have any helpful hints?

Some additional information:

Contents of file /etc/systemd/system/getty@tty1.service.d:
[Service]
ExecStart=
ExecStart=-/usr/bin/agetty --autologin <my user name here> --noclear %I 38400 linux

This appears to match what is given on the wiki page.

When I boot up on tty1 I see the following 5 or 6 status lines (as the boot occurs) and then I get a blank screen. No cursor, Nothing.

What I see just before I get a hang:
[ 1.091195] sd 2:0:0:0 [sda] Assuming drive cache: write through
[ 1.091971\ sd 2:0:0:0 [sda] Assuming drive cache: write through
/dev/sda1: clean, 32887/524288 files, 284593/2096896 blocks
[ 2.633402] piix4_smbus 0000:00:07.3: Host SMBus not enabled!
[ 3.488475] sda1: WRITE SAME failed. Manually zeroing.
<screen clears and hangs. no blinking cursor>

I can log in just fine with the accounts I have tested when I disable the auto login feature, but the system continues to hang when I enable auto login.

One important environmental note: I am running Arch Linux under VMWare (I am building up an image for a bootable CD and it would be nice to have it auto login). I can imagine that this might make a difference, though I've had no issues with running Arch Linux under VMware thus far.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

Last edited by pleearcher (2014-03-13 05:40:32)

Rexilion · 2014-02-23 11:29:28

Mine looks like this:

[Service]
Type=idle
ExecStart=
ExecStart=-/usr/bin/agetty --autologin $user --noclear %I 38400 linux

rebootl · 2014-02-23 21:15:34

Contents of file /etc/systemd/system/getty@tty1.service.d:

This should be a directory, the file should be inside this e.g.:

/etc/systemd/system/getty@tty1.service.d/autologin.conf

Regards

pleearcher · 2014-02-26 03:30:49

@Rexilion: I added your "type=idle" and if I understand correctly what it does, I did not expect it to make any difference. It did not. but thanks for sharing your autologin.conf file.
@Rebootl: Thank you for pointing that out. My post was not correct. The file name *is* autologin.conf and it is located in directory "/etc/systemd/system/getty@tty1.service.d".

Thanks for your responses. I am beginning to suspect that I must have botched something as I built up the system as nothing I can see should cause this behavior. In addition, I know once before I built an arch linux build and the auto login worked just fine.

Does anyone know of a log file I could look into that might hold an error message that might give me some sort of clue? I'm totally perplexed by this system behavior.

Thanks.

alezost · 2014-02-26 05:53:51

Check if the service is active (systemctl status getty@tty1).
Also you may look at journal (journalctl -b -u getty@tty1). For me it looks like this:

Feb 21 09:05:51 leviafan systemd[1]: Starting Getty on tty1...
Feb 21 09:05:51 leviafan systemd[1]: Started Getty on tty1.
Feb 21 09:05:57 leviafan login[232]: pam_unix(login:session): session opened for user alexx by LOGIN(uid=0)

pleearcher · 2014-02-27 02:47:22

Thanks Alezost. That is a great help!

I confirmed that the service is active when I don't specify the autologin.conf file. However, when I activate the autologin file the journal is showing me an error message...my first clue!

Feb 26 22:29:36 ArchDev systemd[1]: getty@tty1.service holdoff time over, scheduling restart
Feb 26 22:29:36 ArchDev systemd[1]: Stopping getty on tty1...
Feb 26 22:29:36 ArchDev systemd[1]: Starting getty on tty1...
Feb 26 22:29:36 ArchDev systemd[1]: Started getty on tty1...
Feb 26 22:29:38 ArchDev systemd[1]: getty@tty1.service holdoff time over, scheduling restart
Feb 26 22:29:38 ArchDev systemd[1]: Stopping getty on tty1...
Feb 26 22:29:38 ArchDev systemd[1]: Starting getty on tty1...
Feb 26 22:29:38 ArchDev systemd[1]: Started getty on tty1...
Feb 26 22:29:38 ArchDev systemd[1]: getty@tty1.service holdoff time over, scheduling restart
Feb 26 22:29:38 ArchDev systemd[1]: Stopping getty on tty1...
Feb 26 22:29:38 ArchDev systemd[1]: Starting getty on tty1...
Feb 26 22:29:38 ArchDev systemd[1]: Started getty on tty1...
Feb 26 22:29:38 ArchDev systemd[1]: getty@tty1.service holdoff time over, scheduling restart
Feb 26 22:29:38 ArchDev systemd[1]: Stopping getty on tty1...
Feb 26 22:29:38 ArchDev systemd[1]: Starting getty on tty1...
Feb 26 22:29:38 ArchDev systemd[1]: Started getty on tty1...
Feb 26 22:29:38 ArchDev systemd[1]: getty@tty1.service holdoff time over, scheduling restart
Feb 26 22:29:38 ArchDev systemd[1]: Stopping getty on tty1...
Feb 26 22:29:38 ArchDev systemd[1]: Starting getty on tty1...
Feb 26 22:29:38 ArchDev systemd[1]: Started getty on tty1...
Feb 26 22:29:38 ArchDev systemd[1]: getty@tty1.service start request repeated too quickly, refusing
Feb 26 22:29:38 ArchDev systemd[1]: Failed to start Getty on tty1...
Feb 26 22:29:38 ArchDev systemd[1]: Unit getty@tty1.service entered failed state

This looks to me like there is some loop going on with the startup of this service. I am puzzled because the file I added (/etc/systemd/system/getty@tty1.service.d/autologin.conf) is so simple I am perplexed as to what I have done wrong...but it sure seems like I've done something wrong. Any suggestions are appreciated, but for now I'm back to looking at this insanely simple file to try to figure out what I typed wrong.

Thanks.

Last edited by pleearcher (2014-02-27 03:11:14)

jasonwryan · 2014-02-27 03:08:07

Please use code tags when pasting to the boards: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Fo … s_and_Code

pleearcher · 2014-02-27 03:11:39

Apologies. I edited the post.

halimbo · 2014-02-27 05:44:33

Hey, i think i found your typo ;)
After the "%" sign it has to be a capitol I (spelled "eee"), not a little "L".
I tried and i got a blank screen too, though i could see a cursor blinking, which might maybe been out of sight for you because of your kernel logs (the assuming drive cache thing).

Edit: My journalctl output looks similar to yours too, seems systemd tries over and over again to start getty which refuses because of the wrong argument. It just has to be it. it must :D

Last edited by halimbo (2014-02-27 05:50:07)

pleearcher · 2014-02-27 14:09:44

Alas, my "I" is a capital "I" (in the line ExecStart=<etc>). However, I think this is the right track. I think there is something very subtly wrong with the file that is causing the problem (cr/lf in the wrong place? space in the wrong place? some other character that LOOKS right but isn't?).

Perhaps I'll try deleting the file and carefully retyping it...again.

But thanks for the confirmation that a typo in the file can cause this type of symptom. I cannot believe I've wasted an entire week on this thing (longer since I didn't post on this board for a few weeks while I tried to figure this out). That's just the way these things go sometimes...

pleearcher · 2014-02-27 14:19:54

Is it possible there is some other requirement that is being assumed by the wiki page that I may not have handled regarding setting up an autologin? For example, the user account I am trying to log into has a password, but this method of logging in never asks for a password. Am I correct in assuming that the system will simply bypass the password check using this autologin method? It would seem silly if the system expected me to remove the password so it could autologin (a security whole a truck could drive through).

Specifically, I went through the wiki to set up my Arch linux system and it seems to be working just fine without the autologin. I then did ONLY what was on the wiki page (https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/au … al_console) for setting up an autologin (created the file and added these handful of lines) on the console. Is there something else that is so basic that the wiki page is assuming I already did that perhaps I missed (this *is* my first real attempt at setting up Arch Linux after all). I have dismissed that possibility more than once because the Arch Linux docs have been spot-on every step of the way thus far. I guess there could be an exception.

Just looking for anything that might let me figure out what is wrong here.

Thanks.

Rexilion · 2014-02-27 14:22:38

The account I'm using has a password, a valid shell and an existing home directory. The last one is not a requirement though.

pleearcher · 2014-02-27 15:38:11

That's good thinking, Rexilion.

I gave it a look, but my user account, shell, and home directory all appear valid.

Rexilion · 2014-02-27 16:14:42

As far as I know, the user needs to exist and the tty needs to be available. I'm stumped why it does not work.

What editor do you use? Are you configured for some (excuse me) exotic and maybe not well supported font?

pleearcher · 2014-02-27 18:14:43

I used vi. As for configuration, I really just followed the getting started instructions on the wiki. I have made no changes. I built up the image, got networking up, and that's about it. I boot to the command line (no need for xwindows for what I'm doing), so there isn't even that. Pretty much just the plain jane setup from the wiki and then for my next step I tried setting up autologin. Really weird.

Clearly I have to have done SOMETHING that I don't remember that seems innocuous but in fact matters a great deal.

I have looked at spaces in the config file, even chmod'd the file to 777 just to make sure there were no security issues. Still perplexed. I'll keep banging away at it but I'm not quite sure what to try next.

Rexilion · 2014-02-27 18:46:43

[gebruiker@delta getty@tty1.service.d]$ ls -la
totaal 4
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root  28  6 jan 19:08 .
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 680  6 jan 21:16 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 105  6 jan 21:44 autologin.conf

Why not try for tty2?

And, did you check for updates?

pleearcher · 2014-02-28 01:51:07

Rexilion,

Good idea to look for updates. I hadn't gotten around to that yet.

I issued the command

pacman -Syu

Of course, now I can't get a successful update! The command runs but ends with an error:

error: failed to commit transaction (conflicting files)

I ran through some suggestions I found as to how to resolve this kind of update issue but so far nothing has worked.

Getting ready to apply the sledge-o-matic to this instance of Arch Linux. Not sure what I've done wrong but now my goal is to get the pacman update to work. I'll give tty2 a try shortly.

Again, thanks for the suggestion...updating is a good idea.

circleface · 2014-02-28 02:05:55

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pa … stem.22.21 might help you with the upgrade issue. It will at least let you know which package owns the pre-existing files.

karol · 2014-02-28 02:07:25

Post the output of 'pacman -Syu'.

halimbo · 2014-02-28 13:16:05

Seems you've got some corrupted setup there.
if you run into more and more problems i would suggest you backup important data and try a fresh install.
but don't take my word for it, that's just what i would do

gebe248 · 2014-03-05 13:20:08

Did you check that /usr/bin/agetty exists? (I encountered a similar behaviour in
openSUSE 13.1 where agetty lives in /sbin/, not /usr/bin/.)

Last edited by gebe248 (2014-03-05 15:06:41)

pleearcher · 2014-03-13 02:34:02

Hey guys...sorry for the long delay...I've been unavailable for a while.

Okay, so I got some sleep and looked at the issue again. Yes, the error message is telling me what is wrong...but my search on the forums isn't giving me good news.

So here is the output of pacman -Syu (or at least, the part that matters)...

error: failed to commit transaction (conflicting filesl)
filesystem: /bin exists in filesystem
filesystem: /sbin exists in filesystem
filesystem: /usr/sbin exists in filesystem
errors occurred, no packages were upgraded

Now I did some poking around in the forums and found that someone (or several someones) have seen this before (see https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=164312).

I am not understanding everything in the discussion...but I see references to [testing]. Are they referring to some "testing" branch of the code? I mean, did I somehow manage to access a 'testing' version (or branch in the version control system) of the software? How did I manage to do that? I never accessed any version control system...I downloaded a file from the arch website that I THOUGHT said it was a stable release.

If I'm reading this right I've clearly got some goofed up packages. I am REALLY puzzled by this as all I have done is download what I thought was the latest stable version, installed it according to the website (unless I royally goofed somewhere...but everything seemed to go right), and then tried to update the system via pacman -Syu.

I fear I may have to junk this and start all over. I have a general idea about what they are talking about in the link I provided regarding how to clean things up, but I have no idea how I got to this point. And if I managed to goof THIS up...what else did I manage to screw up?

So I'd be curious about what others more experienced would do? Is this a salvageable install or should I just chuck all of this out the window and start over again?

Thank you all for you patience and your help in this matter.

karol · 2014-03-13 02:41:13

How old is your installation and which installation medium did you use?
The 'filesystem: /bin exists in filesystem' issue sounds like you tried to install Arch a year ago, not a month ago.

Last edited by karol (2014-03-13 02:42:32)

pleearcher · 2014-03-13 03:43:18

Karol,

Thanks for the reply. You are correct. I had not realized that so much time had passed since I first started working on this. This was a project that got started...then had to be placed into cold storage for a while..and then I came back to. I'm guessing from your question that the problem may be the age of my install? I installed effectively from CD using the iso image "archlinux-2013.04.01-dual.iso". I say "effectively" because I am building up the image on vmware to get my base system, which I will then create a bootable CD from.

Is the pacman upgrade just not going to work because of how old my starting version is? Sounds like there may have been significant/critical file system rearchitecting in the last 11 months...

Thanks.

circleface · 2014-03-13 03:52:44

This link will fix the filesystem problem, but depending on how old your installation is, you might need to go back even farther. Check the main page for arch and make sure you work through each news article and your system should work properly, assuming the mirrors still have the files you need.

Arch Linux

#1 2014-02-23 01:19:19

[SOLVED] Autologin causes hang on tty1

#2 2014-02-23 11:29:28

Re: [SOLVED] Autologin causes hang on tty1

#3 2014-02-23 21:15:34

Re: [SOLVED] Autologin causes hang on tty1

#4 2014-02-26 03:30:49

Re: [SOLVED] Autologin causes hang on tty1

#5 2014-02-26 05:53:51

Re: [SOLVED] Autologin causes hang on tty1

#6 2014-02-27 02:47:22

Re: [SOLVED] Autologin causes hang on tty1

#7 2014-02-27 03:08:07

Re: [SOLVED] Autologin causes hang on tty1

#8 2014-02-27 03:11:39

Re: [SOLVED] Autologin causes hang on tty1

#9 2014-02-27 05:44:33

Re: [SOLVED] Autologin causes hang on tty1

#10 2014-02-27 14:09:44

Re: [SOLVED] Autologin causes hang on tty1

#11 2014-02-27 14:19:54

Re: [SOLVED] Autologin causes hang on tty1

#12 2014-02-27 14:22:38

Re: [SOLVED] Autologin causes hang on tty1

#13 2014-02-27 15:38:11

Re: [SOLVED] Autologin causes hang on tty1

#14 2014-02-27 16:14:42

Re: [SOLVED] Autologin causes hang on tty1

#15 2014-02-27 18:14:43

Re: [SOLVED] Autologin causes hang on tty1

#16 2014-02-27 18:46:43

Re: [SOLVED] Autologin causes hang on tty1

#17 2014-02-28 01:51:07

Re: [SOLVED] Autologin causes hang on tty1

#18 2014-02-28 02:05:55

Re: [SOLVED] Autologin causes hang on tty1

#19 2014-02-28 02:07:25

Re: [SOLVED] Autologin causes hang on tty1

#20 2014-02-28 13:16:05

Re: [SOLVED] Autologin causes hang on tty1

#21 2014-03-05 13:20:08

Re: [SOLVED] Autologin causes hang on tty1

#22 2014-03-13 02:34:02

Re: [SOLVED] Autologin causes hang on tty1

#23 2014-03-13 02:41:13

Re: [SOLVED] Autologin causes hang on tty1

#24 2014-03-13 03:43:18

Re: [SOLVED] Autologin causes hang on tty1

#25 2014-03-13 03:52:44

Re: [SOLVED] Autologin causes hang on tty1

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