console login and startkde works; kdm / session unlock fails

DevSolar · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 07 Sep 2004 Posts: 82

I have a problem that is really annoying me.

I can log in at the console allright. I can also start kde from the console.

But when I lock the session, I cannot unlock it; and when I start kdm, I cannot log in there either. ("Login failed")

No, it is not a matter of the character set - I tested the password in the username field and all characters are correct.

This is a "fresh" install, stable packages only (well, except for madwifi, wpa_supplicant, and eclipse-cdt - nothing login-related). To be exact, it is the second attempt at a fresh install, with the same problem.

I suspect some settings in PAM or something, but I do not have the knowledge where to look and what to look for. Can anybody guide me out of this misery?

LoDown · Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2006 6:33 pm Post subject:

what are the permissions of /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow? Maybe kde/kdm are not being able to read those files. I really don't know, but that might be a place to start.
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DevSolar · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 07 Sep 2004 Posts: 82

/etc/passwd is 644, /etc/shadow is 600. Temporarily setting /etc/shadow to 644 didn't solve the problem.

Pat-rizio · n00b Joined: 05 Apr 2004 Posts: 69

I have same problem DevSolar had...

@ DevSolar: did you solve your problem since your last post?

Any other suggestions from anyone else?

Thx in advance.

DevSolar · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 07 Sep 2004 Posts: 82

Not much of a solution, but...

The system this problem occurred on was installed from binary packages compiled on another (faster) machine. The host was a PIII system, the compiling machine an Athlon TBird. (Yes, make.conf was configured to compile for a pentium3 target.)

The problem went away when I re-installed Gentoo from sources on the PIII system.

It sees as if the from-binary installation was less than perfect at some point.