Re: [gdm-list] FailsafeXServer - gdm keeps restarting X

[Bryce Harrington <bryce bryceharrington org>]

On Thu, Aug 30, 2007 at 05:23:24PM -0700, Mike Oliver wrote:
> Bryce Harrington wrote:
> >I've tried it both with and without the '&' without any change of
> >effect.  I left it in since the example you pointed to had one but I
> >think it is unnecessary.
> 
> Leave the '&' there, otherwise the 'sleep' and 'kill' won't
> execute until after the 'xinit' has terminated.
> 
> Try adding a 'wait' after the 'kill' so that your failsafe
> script does not exit until the 'xinit' exits.  Right now your
> script will terminate immediately after the 'kill', and
> that's going to cause GDM to try to proceed to do something
> else with this server instance.

Hi Mike,

Wow, this seems to have taken a big step forward, although it's still
not quite working.  After adding 'wait' at the end of the script, the
behavior is a bit different.  It starts up the failsafe session like
before, but now after a second or two it overlays the screen with a
warning dialog.  Unfortunately, after clearing the dialog, it still goes
back to restarting the x server.  But I think this means that now gdm is
hearing back that the X process is running.

The full log is here:
   people.ubuntu.com/~bryce/files/gdm-syslog.log

The interesting parts of the log:

Aug 30 18:45:41 dorset gdm[7848]: DEBUG: gdm_server_spawn: '/etc/gdm/failsafeExample :0 -auth /var/lib/gdm/:0.Xauth -nolisten tcp vt9' 
Aug 30 18:45:41 dorset gdm[7842]: DEBUG: gdm_server_spawn: Forked server on pid 7848 
Aug 30 18:45:41 dorset gdm[7842]: DEBUG: do_server_wait: Before mainloop waiting for server 
...
Aug 30 18:45:46 dorset gdm[7842]: DEBUG: gdm_server_start: After mainloop waiting for server 
Aug 30 18:45:46 dorset gdm[7842]: DEBUG: gdm_server_start: Completed :0! 
Aug 30 18:45:46 dorset gdm[7842]: DEBUG: Sending VT_NUM == 9 for slave 7842 
...
Aug 30 18:45:46 dorset gdm[7786]: DEBUG: Handling message: 'VT_NUM 7842 9' 
Aug 30 18:45:46 dorset gdm[7786]: DEBUG: Got VT_NUM == 9 
Aug 30 18:45:46 dorset gdm[7842]: DEBUG: Sending XPID == 7848 for slave 7842 
...
Aug 30 18:45:46 dorset gdm[7786]: DEBUG: Handling message: 'XPID 7842 7848' 
Aug 30 18:45:46 dorset gdm[7786]: DEBUG: Got XPID == 7848 
Aug 30 18:45:46 dorset gdm[7842]: DEBUG: gdm_slave_run: Opening display :0 
...
Aug 30 18:45:46 dorset gdm[7786]: DEBUG: Handling message: 'START_NEXT_LOCAL' 
...
Aug 30 18:45:46 dorset gdm[7842]: DEBUG: gdm_slave_greeter: Running greeter on :0 
Aug 30 18:45:46 dorset gdm[7842]: DEBUG: Attempting to parse key string: daemon/DisplayInitDir=/etc/gdm/Init 
Aug 30 18:45:46 dorset gdm[7842]: DEBUG: Forking extra process: /etc/gdm/Init/Default 
...
Aug 30 18:45:46 dorset gdm[7842]: DEBUG: Forking greeter process: /usr/lib/gdm/gdmgreeter 
...
Aug 30 18:45:46 dorset gdm[7862]: DEBUG: Sending SHOW_ERROR_DIALOG == <secret> for slave 7862 
Aug 30 18:45:46 dorset gdm[7786]: DEBUG: Attempting to parse key string: debug/Enable=false 
Aug 30 18:45:46 dorset gdm[7786]: DEBUG: Handling message: 'opcode=SHOW_ERROR_DIALOG$$pid=7842$$type=3$$error=Could not start the regular X server (your graphical environment) and so this is a failsafe X server.  You should log in and properly configure the X server.$$details_label=NIL$$details_file=NIL$$uid=0$$gid=0' 
Aug 30 18:45:46 dorset gdm[7786]: DEBUG: Forking extra process: error dialog 
...
Aug 30 18:45:46 dorset gdm[7863]: Gtk-WARNING: Ignoring the separator setting 
Aug 30 18:45:46 dorset gdm[7842]: DEBUG: gdm_slave_greeter: Greeter on pid 7862 
Aug 30 18:45:46 dorset gdm[7842]: DEBUG: Sending GREETPID == 7862 for slave 7842 


I'm curious what this 'START_NEXT_LOCAL' bit is?

I take it the greeter is what creates this SHOW_ERROR_DIALOG stuff?  Is
there a way to turn that off?  (I display my own greet dialog as part of
the failsafe code).

Thanks,
Bryce