Bug 20835 - User can't login into DE session because of user's .Xauthority file was owned by root
Summary: User can't login into DE session because of user's .Xauthority file was owned...
Status: NEW
Alias: None
Product: Mageia
Classification: Unclassified
Component: RPM Packages (show other bugs)
Version: Cauldron
Hardware: x86_64 Linux
Priority: High major
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Mageia tools maintainers
QA Contact:
URL:
Whiteboard: MGA8TOO
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2017-05-13 05:37 CEST by Yuri Galitsky
Modified: 2022-08-21 18:52 CEST (History)
5 users (show)

See Also:
Source RPM: drakx-kbd-mouse-x11
CVE:
Status comment:


Attachments
journalctl output (67.24 KB, text/plain)
2017-05-13 10:30 CEST, Marja Van Waes
Details

Description Yuri Galitsky 2017-05-13 05:37:15 CEST
Description of problem:
Mageia6 sta2
After starting MCC by the user from the menu, then selecting "Hardware -> Configuring the graphic server -> Test -> Yes" after the performed testing the owner of the .Xauthority file of the user will be root. And in the next boot the user can not enter the DE session because of the rights restriction to this file.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):

How reproducible:
Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Run MCC from the menu, run test in the 'Configuring the graphic server' from the 'Hardvare' section
2.See your ~/.Xauthority file was owned by root
3.Reboot ant try to log in into DE
Comment 1 Marja Van Waes 2017-05-13 10:30:09 CEST
Created attachment 9294 [details]
journalctl output

Confirming the issue with a test user:

In /home/u/ there was:

-rw-------  1 u    u         54 apr 25 12:12 .Xauthority

After starting an XFCE session with "u" and running the graphic server test from MCC (but no settings changed) there was:

-rw-------  1 root root     108 mei 13 09:37 .Xauthority
-rw-------  2 u    u          0 mei 13 09:38 .Xauthority-c
-rw-------  2 u    u          0 mei 13 09:38 .Xauthority-l

and after logging out it was indeed impossible to log in again.

After running "chown u: .Xauthority" (which was probably bound to fail to solve the issue, since the file had twice the original size) logging in was stil impossible. I then noticed that the contents of that file had been deleted

-rw-------  1 u    u          0 mei 13 09:39 .Xauthority
-rw-------  2 u    u          0 mei 13 09:38 .Xauthority-c
-rw-------  2 u    u          0 mei 13 09:38 .Xauthority-l

After deleting all three .Xauthority* files, logging in worked fine again and the newly created .Xauthority had the correct size. 

Attaching the output of 

   journalctl -a --since="2017-05-13 09:35" --until="2017-05-13 09:41" 

I have _not_ tried whether this bug is also valid when you actually change your configuration before testing it. 

@ Yuri

Did you?

CC: (none) => marja11

Marja Van Waes 2017-05-13 10:31:31 CEST

Assignee: bugsquad => mageiatools
Source RPM: (none) => drakx-kbd-mouse-x11
Keywords: (none) => NEEDINFO

Comment 2 Yuri Galitsky 2017-05-16 09:22:37 CEST
If I changed the configuration of the Graphic Card before "testing", everything is seems fine with this file then.
Comment 3 Per Nelvig 2017-11-04 07:33:05 CET
I encountered this bug on two recently installed boxes with Mageia 6 64-bit and Mate desktop. Solved it by changing user and group on .Xautority from "root" to normal user.

CC: (none) => pernel

Comment 4 Florian Hubold 2021-05-02 18:11:45 CEST
@tv: As this happens pretty often to novice users when using the "Test" button in drakx11 - would it be difficult to implement a failsafe to chown any ~/.Xauthority* file in that users home folder to that user if it belongs to root ? That should probably go here, although I'm not that good at perl: http://gitweb.mageia.org/software/drakx-kbd-mouse-x11/tree/lib/Xconfig/test.pm#n137

CC: (none) => doktor5000, thierry.vignaud

Comment 5 Morgan Leijström 2021-10-05 15:12:22 CEST
I believe NEEDINFO got satisfied by comment 2.
This trap have been present since long time.

Whiteboard: (none) => MGA8TOO
Keywords: NEEDINFO => (none)
CC: (none) => fri

Comment 6 Morgan Leijström 2021-12-11 19:39:49 CET
Our GUI tool for novices makes novices locked out - pretty serious.
 
Raising severity and priority.

Severity: normal => major
Priority: Normal => High

Comment 7 Morgan Leijström 2022-08-21 18:52:13 CEST
I see yet another user now needed help on forum with this.

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