I am running RH WS v4 with runinit set to 5. If I log in as root, XSession starts just fine. However, if I log in as a non-root user, I get a dialog box that pops up stating 'Your session has lasted less than 10 seconds.........check the ~/.xsession-errors file. When I do see this:

/etc/X11/gdm/PreSession/Default: Registering your session with wtmp and utmp
/etc/X11/gdm/PreSession/Default: running: /usr/bin/X11/sessreg -a -w /val/log/wtmp
-u /var/run/utmp -x "/var/gdm/:0.Xservers" -h "" "" -l ":0" "mlriichar" Agent pid 7096
/etc/X11/xdm/Xsession: line 80: /usr/bin/dbus-launch --exit-with-session
/etc/X11/xinit/Xclients: No such file or directory
/etc/X11/xdm/Xsession: line 80: exec: /usr/bin/dbus-launch --exit-with-session
/etc/X11/xinit/Xclients: cannot execute: No such file or directory

I'm using NFS and autofs to mount the home directories. I'm at a loss as how to proceed

Howzit

The reason u can not lauch with users it sounds like a permissons problem as the xclient file can not be read from the NFS drives. Try login as a normal user and see if u can get a home directory if not then like I said check the file permissons. Reason u are able to login as root is because root home directory is /root

cheers

I'll try that and then get back with you. However, I wanted to ask about you mentioning the 'xclient file can not be read from the NFS drives'. If i do a failsafe start and just get into a terminal window using a non-root user, I can login fine. If I do a cd /home/mlrichar (where mlrichar is my userid and home directory on the NFS server), I can ls and mkdir jsut fine. I'm trying to get the setup in place where I don't have any local userids and directories stored on the workstation. All the id's authenticate using LDAP and they are authenticating correctly. I'd like the users to acess their directories, including home, from a NFS server. I've been working with RHEL 3&4 for about 6 months now. I come from a mainly windows background where home directories plus others can be assigned when the login to a domain controller. I thought NFS would allow me to do the same? Let me know please if my reasoning or thinking is off. Thanks again and I'll let you know about logging in with a local user.

Hi

you have to check if you can see your shell entries in /usr/bin/getent passwd.
If there is no entry like /bin/sh or /bin/bash you are not able to login as LDAP user.
Probably the Access Control rules for the attr=loginShell in /etc/openldap/slapd.conf are not set accurate.

Bye

Alex

Can anyone please post the solution to the above problem?
The only entry related with loginShell is the following one:

access to attrs=loginShell,shadowLastChange,gecos,userPassword,sambaNTPassword,sambaLMPassword
by dn="cn=admin,dc=ldapserver,dc=mydomain,dc=com" write
by anonymous auth
by self write
by * none

Any help is much appreciated.

Thanks

I agree with Alex, comment #4. You shoule be POSIXaccount as first, which contains login shell information.

And, you'd better log in as root to check why /etc/X11/xinit/xclient miss? "startx" first check ~/.xclient, if not exist, turn to /etc/X11/xinit/xclient(Read /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc script, you'll know more).

Third point, can you review the timeout setting in /etc/auto.master:
for example, sets a timeout of 60 seconds; if the automounted directory is not used or accessed in this time, it is automatically unmounted. Note,If you were to make NFS directory as your current directory, the Automounter would ignore any timeouts. Otherwise, HOME is automatically unmounted according to the timeout.

PhillipHuang, are you saying to add POSIXaccount insteed of loginShell? If yes, I did that and slapd daemon does not start.

My home dir is mounted via nfs so /etc/auto.master and timeouts wont work either.

Server is running CentOS 4.4 if that matters.

We have many Debian boxes that work as ldap clients with no problem at all. We have the problem only with CentOS boxes (the only one) and X authentication.

Thanks a lot