X won't login normal users (cannot write to /tmp)

R00ts · 03-13-2005, 09:25 AM

Problem

When logging in as a non-root user I get the following error and it brings me back to login.

Code:

Xsession: warning: Unable to write to /tmp; X session may exit with an error

What I've tried

1) I checked my permissions on /tmp. No problems there.

2) I examined my .xsession-errors file and found this:

Code:

Xsession: X session started for roots at Sun Mar 13 04:12:18 CST 2005
Xsession: warning: unable to write to /tmp; X session may exit with an error
mkdtemp: private socket dir: No space left on device

3) I found where this test is ran in /etc/X11/Xsession:

Code:

# Attempt to create a file of non-zero length in /tmp; a full filesystem can
# cause mysterious X session failures. We do not use touch, :, or test -w
# because they won't actually create a file with contents. We also let standard
# error from tempfile and echo go to the error file to aid the user in
# determining what went wrong.
WRITE_TEST=$(tempfile)
if ! echo "*" >>"$WRITE_TEST"; then
message "warning: unable to write to ${WRITE_TEST%/*}; X session may exit" \
"with an error"
fi
rm -f "$WRITE_TEST"

4) I checked my partition sizes and disc space:

Code:

Name           Directory    Type       Total      Used     Used (%)
/dev/hda1     /                 ext3        4.6GB   4.4GB    97%
none            /dev            tmpfs      5.0MB   772KB   15%
/dev/             /.dev          unknown 4.6GB   4.4GB    97%
/dev/hda6     /home        ext3        178.3GB 71.3GB 40%
tmpfs            /dev/shm    tmpfs      442.7MBGB  0B   0%

5) Seeing that root was running low, I tried uninstalling a package that freed over 20MB. It still didn't let me login as non-root.

***************************************************

I'm running out of ideas now.

I guess this test in Xsession isn't run if you login as root or something then? I can login to X as root just fine. I'm thoroughly perplexed here.

Please help, thanks.

dishawjp · 03-13-2005, 09:55 AM

A couple of questions first... are you running SELinux? What distribution and version are you running?

It kind of sounds like SELinux permissions errors I got in FC3. If this is the case, to get the security context to your /tmp directory, you need to run "ls -Z /tmp"

The simplest fix if this is a SELinux issue is to boot to single user mode and give the command "fixfiles relabel"

It will warn you that all files in /tmp will be deleted (normally no biggie, but important if you put something you want to keep there) and then will take a few minutes to run.

If you're not running SELinux, then I have no idea.

Jim Dishaw

R00ts · 03-13-2005, 10:04 AM

Nope, I'm running Debian sarge. Thanks though.

I just freed another 100MB of apps on / so now Im at 4.3/4.6GB (94%) usage for /. I think that should be MORE than enough to at least get into a non-root user, but this time when I tried to login as non-root the screen went black for a second, and brought me back to the login screen with no error message this time.

I think what I need to do is resize my partitions and give / a hell of a lot more space (maybe another 15GB). Since I'm not anywhere near my full-usage on /home, can I do this without having to backup my data? Most of my data is already backed up, but I don't want to back it up *again*. BTW this is a new install so /home has never reached it's full capacity.

(here is the latest output from .xsession-errors. Apparently something funky is going on with my uim server, so I'm going to look into that and maybe temporarily disable it).

Code:

Xsession: X session started for roots at Sun Mar 13 04:56:02 CST 2005
UIM-XIM bridge. Now testing to support multiple locales.
Supported conversion engines:
  py (zh_CN)
  pyunihan (zh_CN)
  pinyin-big5 (zh_TW:zh_HK)
  anthy (ja)
  prime (ja)
  skk (ja)
  tcode (ja)
  tutcode (ja)
  hangul2 (ko)
  hangul3 (ko)
  romaja (ko)
  viqr (vi)
  ipa ()
  m17n-am-sera (am)
  m17n-as-itrans (as)
  m17n-bn-itrans (bn)
  m17n-bo-wylie (bo)
  m17n-el-kbd (el)
  m17n-ar-kbd (ar)
  m17n-gu-itrans (gu)
  m17n-he-kbd (he)
  m17n-hi-itrans (hi)
  m17n-hr-kbd (hr)
  m17n-ja-anthy (ja)
  m17n-ja-tcode (ja)
  m17n-kk-arabic (kk)
  m17n-kk-kbd (kk)
  m17n-kn-itrans (kn)
  m17n-ko-hangul2 (ko)
  m17n-ko-romaja (ko)
  m17n-lo-lrt (lo)
  m17n-ml-itrans (ml)
  m17n-or-itrans (or)
  m17n-pa-itrans (pa)
  m17n-ru-yawerty (ru)
  m17n-sl-kbd (sl)
  m17n-sr-kbd (sr)
  m17n-ta-itrans (ta)
  m17n-te-itrans (te)
  m17n-th-kesmanee (th)
  m17n-vi-telex (vi)
  m17n-vi-viqr (vi)
  m17n-zh-py (zh)
  m17n-zh-pinyin (zh)
  direct (*)
Another instance exists (uim).
Another instance exists (uim-py).
Another instance exists (uim-pyunihan).
Another instance exists (uim-pinyin-big5).
Another instance exists (uim-anthy).
Another instance exists (uim-prime).
Another instance exists (uim-skk).
Another instance exists (uim-tcode).
Another instance exists (uim-tutcode).
Another instance exists (uim-hangul2).
Another instance exists (uim-hangul3).
Another instance exists (uim-romaja).
Another instance exists (uim-viqr).
Another instance exists (uim-ipa).
Another instance exists (uim-m17n-am-sera).
Another instance exists (uim-m17n-as-itrans).
Another instance exists (uim-m17n-bn-itrans).
Another instance exists (uim-m17n-bo-wylie).
Another instance exists (uim-m17n-el-kbd).
Another instance exists (uim-m17n-ar-kbd).
Another instance exists (uim-m17n-gu-itrans).
Another instance exists (uim-m17n-he-kbd).
Another instance exists (uim-m17n-hi-itrans).
Another instance exists (uim-m17n-hr-kbd).
Another instance exists (uim-m17n-ja-anthy).
Another instance exists (uim-m17n-ja-tcode).
Another instance exists (uim-m17n-kk-arabic).
Another instance exists (uim-m17n-kk-kbd).
Another instance exists (uim-m17n-kn-itrans).
Another instance exists (uim-m17n-ko-hangul2).
Another instance exists (uim-m17n-ko-romaja).
Another instance exists (uim-m17n-lo-lrt).
Another instance exists (uim-m17n-ml-itrans).
Another instance exists (uim-m17n-or-itrans).
Another instance exists (uim-m17n-pa-itrans).
Another instance exists (uim-m17n-ru-yawerty).
Another instance exists (uim-m17n-sl-kbd).
Another instance exists (uim-m17n-sr-kbd).
Another instance exists (uim-m17n-ta-itrans).
Another instance exists (uim-m17n-te-itrans).
Another instance exists (uim-m17n-th-kesmanee).
Another instance exists (uim-m17n-vi-telex).
Another instance exists (uim-m17n-vi-viqr).
Another instance exists (uim-m17n-zh-py).
Another instance exists (uim-m17n-zh-pinyin).
Another instance exists (uim-direct).
aborting...
The application 'uim-toolbar-gtk-systray' lost its connection to the display :0.0;
most likely the X server was shut down or you killed/destroyed
the application.

R00ts · 03-13-2005, 10:06 AM

Ok I tried logging in again and it worked.

No more problems (for now)

master · 09-01-2005, 12:14 PM

well i have the same problem running debian 3.1 which i recently installed
when i do "df" i get this
filesystem 1k blocks used available use% mounted on
/dev/hda1 6728280 6432064 0 100% /
tmpfs 128132 0 128132 0% /dev/shm
any way it would seem the only one which is full is/dev/hda1
but i dont know what i can delete if that is the problem or i cant see anything i can delete thanks nige

master · 09-03-2005, 12:48 AM

hello as i said earlier i got the same error message as above "Xsession: warning: Unable to write to /tmp; X session may exit with an error
" any way i did "ls -l "and the feedack was "drwx----- 4 root root 4096 2005-09-03 06:43 1950727615" so am i right in saying the owner is root and normal users can not right to this file if so is that what my problem is. do i need to change the permisions
tanks nige

master · 09-03-2005, 01:25 AM

hello what i have done is change my permissions for /tmp to 777 but i still get the same error message i verified every one could rwe with this "ls -l"so i am sure there is no problem with permissions so the only other thing could be there is no room short of deleating anthing in tmp is there another way i can give it some more space.
thanks nige