Bug 110452

Summary: user-visible report on missing home directory wanted
Product: [Unmaintained] kdm Reporter: Jens <jens-bugs.kde.org>
Component: generalAssignee: kdm bugs tracker <kdm-bugs-null>
Status: RESOLVED FIXED    
Severity: wishlist    
Priority: NOR    
Version: unspecified   
Target Milestone: ---   
Platform: unspecified   
OS: Linux   
Latest Commit: Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description Jens 2005-08-09 12:13:57 UTC 
Version:           Unbekannt (using KDE 3.4.0 Level "b" , SUSE 9.3)
Compiler:          gcc version 3.3.5 20050117 (prerelease) (SUSE Linux)
OS:                Linux (i686) release 2.6.11.4-21.7-default

Hello,

since KDM autologin is the default in many current distributions it creates a huge mess of confusion if the autologin user does not exist any more, e.g. because s?he has been renamed or removed. I just spent two hours reading log files and searching for the cause of countless "getpwnam()" calls and calls to open a non-existant /home/foo/.xsession-erros file, until I found out KDM was the cause.

IMHO kdm should behave as follows: If a getpwnam() call to the user in question fails, either

 a) at least print a syslog error message that says "kdm: Cannot auto-login user $USER: account not found" or something similar,
 b) better pop up an error message in the KDM login screen saying something similar, and (perhaps) offer to remove the autologin account (with a root password prompt).

Thank you,

Jens
Comment 1 Oswald Buddenhagen 2005-08-21 18:45:18 UTC 
i get a pretty "authenticating <user> ... a critical error has occurred" message box. verbally maybe slight overkill, but exactly what was planned ...
Comment 2 Oswald Buddenhagen 2005-09-14 18:43:16 UTC 
the conversation seems to have stalled ... ;)
Comment 3 Jens 2005-09-15 12:13:58 UTC 
True ... is anything being done (or has been done) about this?
Comment 4 Oswald Buddenhagen 2005-09-15 12:25:58 UTC 
no, because there is nothing to do as far as i'm concerned. i made a statement and expect some reaction to it.
Comment 5 Jens 2005-09-15 13:18:20 UTC 
Well... I didn't get this message box during login.
I tried again now (inserting a non-existing user) and got this message box.

Maybe the error only occurs if the user home directory does not exist, but the user account still exists.

Jens
Comment 6 Oswald Buddenhagen 2005-09-15 20:18:32 UTC 
ah, now, that makes sense. not that it would be a new one ... :}


*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 81597 ***
Comment 7 Oswald Buddenhagen 2005-09-15 20:28:54 UTC 
bah, actually reading the report instead of only the title helps sometimes. :}
Comment 8 Oswald Buddenhagen 2005-09-15 20:34:08 UTC 
this is sort-of a duplicate of bug #80032 in that it has the same root cause - kdm has no infrastructure to display error messages graphically past a certain point of the login process.
Comment 9 Oswald Buddenhagen 2007-07-11 19:33:15 UTC 
implemented for kde 4.0