XFCE starts as root w/o login screen

Mark Knecht markknecht at gmail.com
Wed Feb 3 15:06:18 CET 2010


On Tue, Feb 2, 2010 at 10:49 PM, Doug Laidlaw <laidlaws at hotkey.net.au> wrote:
> (Copy for the list.  I hit the wrong Reply button - again  :(
> Addendum: I think that Suse uses init 4, called unused by default.)
>
> On Wed, 3 Feb 2010 02:54:39 pm you wrote:
>> On Tue, Feb 2, 2010 at 5:51 PM, Doug Laidlaw <laidlaws at hotkey.net.au> wrote:
>> > On Wed, 3 Feb 2010 10:19:05 am Mark Knecht wrote:
>> >> On Tue, Feb 2, 2010 at 3:09 PM, Mark Neis <neismark at gmx.de> wrote:
>> >> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>> >> > Hash: SHA1
>> >> >
>> >> > Hi Doug,
>> >> >
>> >> > thanks for taking the time to answer.
>> >> >
>> >> > You said:
>> >> >> Since XFCE is only the desktop, your problem is further up, or back.
>> >> >
>> >> > That's exactly my problem. I'm not sure where to look.
>> >> > My understanding so far has been that the display manager asks for a
>> >> > login. Hence I should probably try to install and start xdm...
>> >> >
>> >> >> You need to have a user account in the OS, and login as that user.
>> >> >
>> >> > I do have a user account on the system (I created one), but finding a
>> >> > way to make the system require a login beats me. It does on the
>> >> > console (i. e. on a different tty), but not when starting X.
>> >> >
>> >> >> http://fos.foxconn.com/index.php?lanmu_id=44
>> >> >
>> >> > Documentation about FoxOS is virtually non-existent. I also tried
>> >> > Fedora, but as they use Gnome or KDE by default, that didn't take me
>> >> > any further, either.
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> > Mark
>> >>
>> >> What's in your /etc/inittab file? I have a couple of machine I do
>> >> auto-login setups on by modifying that file. Maybe these FoxOS guys
>> >> did something like that?
>> >>
>> >> Cheers,
>> >> Mark
>> >> _______________________________________________
>> >> Xfce mailing list
>> >> Xfce at xfce.org
>> >> http://foo-projects.org/mailman/listinfo/xfce
>> >> http://www.xfce.org
>> >
>> > But before you decide about the login, you need to have a user.
>> >  /etc/inittab decides whether your display is text-only (level 3) or
>> > graphical (level 5). It doesn't create any users.  A proper login needs
>> > an xdm or similar file, although KDE allows you to bypass it. There
>> > should be a configurator somewhere, but since I run Mandriva, I don't
>> > know where to look.  Run "less /etc/passwd"; that will show you which
>> > users are known to the system.  If you weren't invited to create a user,
>> > there probably isn't one.  If a user such as "guest" is listed, you
>> > should be able to log in as that.
>> >
>> > This is not an Xfce problem.  You need a forum for the OS.  There is a
>> > "Support" link on the Web page I gave you; I am not going to do any more
>> > of your homework for you.
>> >
>> > Doug.
>>
>> I agree that it's not an XFCE problem so he could take the question
>> elsewhere, but I disagree that he doesn't have a user. He said in the
>> original post that XFCE is running as root. root is his user, and that
>> can be done in inittab.
>>
>> - Mark
>>
> What is the line in /etc/inittab?  Mine is set out below.
>
> "#
> # inittab       This file describes how the INIT process should set up
> #               the system in a certain run-level.
> #
> # Author:       Miquel van Smoorenburg, <miquels at drinkel.nl.mugnet.org>
> #               Modified for RHS Linux by Marc Ewing and Donnie Barnes
> #
>
> # Default runlevel. The runlevels used by Mandriva Linux are:
> #   0 - halt (Do NOT set initdefault to this)
> #   1 - Single user mode
> #   2 - Multiuser, without NFS (The same as 3, if you do not have networking)
> #   3 - Full multiuser mode
> #   4 - unused
> #   5 - X11
> #   6 - reboot (Do NOT set initdefault to this)
> #
> id:5:initdefault:
>
> # System initialization.
> si::sysinit:/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit
>
> l0:0:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 0
> l1:1:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 1
> l2:2:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 2
> l3:3:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 3
> l4:4:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 4
> l5:5:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 5
> l6:6:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 6
>
> # Trap CTRL-ALT-DELETE
> ca::ctrlaltdel:/sbin/shutdown -t3 -r now
>
> # When our UPS tells us power has failed, assume we have a few minutes
> # of power left.  Schedule a shutdown for 2 minutes from now.
> # This does, of course, assume you have powerd installed and your
> # UPS connected and working correctly.
> pf::powerfail:/sbin/shutdown -f -h +2 "Power Failure; System Shutting Down"
>
> # If power was restored before the shutdown kicked in, cancel it.
> pr:12345:powerokwait:/sbin/shutdown -c "Power Restored; Shutdown Cancelled"
>
>
> # Run gettys in standard runlevels
> 1:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty1
> 2:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty2
> 3:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty3
> 4:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty4
> 5:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty5
> 6:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty6
>
> # Single user mode
> ~~:S:wait:/bin/sh "
>
>
> It only says that the system can be started in Single User mode (failsafe) by
> changing the line:
>
> id:5:initdefault:       #i.e. normal graphical mode
>
> to read:
>
> id:1:initdefault:
>
> Single user mode is a text-only mode, and only the root user is allowed.
> Presumably he is running a graphical view, which is init 5, multi-user.
>
> Apart from single user, there is nothing in /etc/inittab to set him to login
> as anybody in particular -- that is, if there are any other users on the
> system to select.  It happens elsewhere.  If you change the 5 to 3, you get
> console mode, but the usual choice of users.  If he logs in as himself, he has
> to have his own home directory under /home.  The unprivileged user can't write
> to /root/*
>
> Since he is the root user at present, he should be able to look at the
> directory tree under /home, to see what other users there are.
>
> I suspect that because everybody runs Windows with administrative privileges,
> this "consumer" product has set up Linux to run the same way for convenience,
> but without looking at it, I can't say.  I would suggest that he install his
> own choice of distro.
>
> I have no authority here. Can't some guru settle the question?
>
> Doug.
> _______________________________________________
> Xfce mailing list
> Xfce at xfce.org
> http://foo-projects.org/mailman/listinfo/xfce
> http://www.xfce.org
>

I  use this to start some mythtv frontends each time they boot. No
login, they just come up running MythTV.

In /etc/inittab

# TERMINALS
#c1:12345:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 tty1 linux
c1:12345:respawn:/bin/su mythtv -c startx
c2:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 tty2 linux
c3:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 tty3 linux
c4:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 tty4 linux
c5:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 tty5 linux
c6:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 tty6 linux

and then inside the .xinitrc file (because I used startx above) in the
mythtv home directory:

myth12 mythtv # cat .xinitrc
# .xinitrc
#exec /usr/bin/fluxbox &
#exec /usr/bin/evilwm &
exec /usr/bin/mythfrontend
myth12 mythtv #

I'm sure someone smarter than me can figure out using init scripts how
to do really fancy stuff, but as I show here I run mythfrontend this
way as well as having tried fluxbox and evilwm. I'm sure you can
/bin/su root and do whatever you want.

Again, __clearly__ this is not an XFCE problem he's experiencing. It's
someone's idea of how to make a Linux machine 'friendly', probably
gone amuck...

Cheers,
Mark



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