GDM could not write your authorization file , problems with Centos 5.4 x86_64

[whitewolf573]

On Monday i had Centos 5.3 with / and /home in ext3 , with no problems (at least i don't remember any problem).

But as I decided to use XFS (I have a SSD , and i use a 3D Modeling software called Maya , that it's quite sure it could take advantage of use XFS ) , i decided to create in my new Solid State Disk , that i recently bought , a swap , a / partition formated in XFS , and a /home partition in XFS too.

Then I used a Live cd to copy the contents from the old HDD to the new SSD , using find and Rsync --> (cd /mnt/oldroot/ ; find . -xdev -print0 | rsync -avHx --exclude-from /mnt/rsync-filter . /mnt/newroot/)

Once done , i edited fstab,Menu.lst , install grub in the MBR and i had to use mkinitrd to load the XFS.ko so be able to boot with the new system.

All worked fine , although i only could log with the root , my normal user could not log , and a error appeared :

GDM could not write your authorization file . This
could mean that you are out of disk space or that your
home directory could not be opened for writing . In any
case it is not possible to login. Contact system administrator

But i remember that prior to Copy all to the new SSD , and use XFS , all was fine, and i was able to log with my user.

So thinking that perhaps the copy did by Rsync was not ok , or something i decided to reinstall Centos, now in a partition in my SSD and try another time , but without using a /home partition neither a normal user ,only using root.

The SSD had a Swap , a 32 GB XFS partition and the / of the new Install in ext3 (20 GB ).


Once installed Centos 5.3 , I updated only Glibc , yum and Python packages (like said in Centos 5.4 Release notes recommends , but not doing the final yum update)

Then i updated only the kernel , to have a XFS supported Kernel , and then i rebooted (I would update all once migrated to xfs)

I boot my Ubuntu Live-CD ,mount both the new and old root partitions ,and copy the old content in the new using Rsync and find again ((cd /mnt/oldroot/ ; find . -xdev -print0 | rsync -avHx --exclude-from /mnt/rsync-filter . /mnt/newroot/)) , excluding /tmp, /dev,/proc and /sys.

Then i used mkdir to recreate the excluded partitions in the new XFS partition , and i used "diff -qr /mnt/newroot/ /mnt/oldroot/ > diff.log" to compare both directories , and all was ok , only complained about some tmp content no copied , but all other directories had the same contents, so rsync did ok , at least this time , and i think either last.

I then edited fstab,menu.lst,and used mkinitrd , like last time , and booted into Centos.

I logged as root , graphically , yes , i know i shouldn't do it , i know.

Then i used yum to update the rest of packages not updated previously and then as i saw that all was ok , i deleted the ext3 partition , and created a XFS 60 Gb partition to use as /home.Then i edited fstab to add it , reboot , and i created a new , normal , user.

When i logged on , a error appeared:

GDM could not write your authorization file . This
could mean that you are out of disk space or that your
home directory could not be opened for writing . In any
case it is not possible to login. Contact system administrator

I don't know why , but seems a problem with XFS , but , i formatted /home partition to ext3 , change fstab and delete and recreate user ,and when logging gives the same error.

I have tried to do chmod 775 to the user directory in /home , create the .Xauthority and .dmrc (as they are not created , as i can't never log ) ,but anything worked.

I really don't know what to do , also of reinstall Centos 5.3 in the other hard disk and see if works all. If works , as i think , is either a XFS problem (but format the partition to ext3 didn't help) or a problem when migrating / to a XFS partition , but not of migrate /home , as this time i did create a new partition by hand , and mounted it in /home , when nothing was there , so no migrating need.

I could stay with ext3 , if i can't get xfs and GDM work , because , be able to have a normal user , i think is more important than have a bit of advantage using XFS. And for SSD trim via wiper.sh script (it recomends XFS or EXT4) i can do it offline too (XFS lets to do it on-line , when partition is read-write mounted also )

But if someone can help me a bit or advice me about what i could do l, would be great ,as by the moment , Google and forum search didn't work too much.

[toracat]

Wonder if the permissions on /tmp are correct. Is it set to 1777 ?

[whitewolf573]

[quote]
Wonder if the permissions on /tmp are correct. Is it set to 1777 ?.[/quote]

I'm not at home yet , to see what are the permissions,but i remember that i used the live cd , using the root account to create via mkdir the tmp, dev,proc and sys directories , and i didn't change any permission.

If /tmp has no write permission for the other group for example , that would make imposible to log with other users no ?

If it is that ,it would explain why i can log with root ,but no with other users , without permissions to write in /tmp.

[whitewolf573]

The /tmp permissions are 755 ( drwxr-xr-x ). I will change them to 1777 to see what happens.

[whitewolf573]

I used chmod -R 1777 tmp , then i could log on with my normal user , but when i tried to log as root , it gave me a Gconf error , i don't remember what exactly , but i rebooted and i had a kernel panic , didn't find /dev/root , /dev , /and proc , exactly like when i migrated to xfs and i didn't use mkinitrd to load the xfs module.

As i didn't know how to fix the kernel panic ,i decided to reinstall Centos , update it, and then copy all via rsync , included tmp (well , really i can copy all , as i copy it using a live-cd so /dev and /proc directories wil be unused , so i will be able to copy them too)

Now i am updating it , and then i will migrate to xfs , and see if copying tmp also , works , and let me log on. I think the problem with tmp was the permissions , and later that i used -R and change permissions inside tmp/ and not only the directory.

[whitewolf573]

Well , now , i have my Centos 5.4 x86_64 migrated to xfs , and all is working fine and i can log on with my normal user without problems.

[AlanBartlett]

[quote]
I think the problem with tmp was the permissions , and later that i used -R and change permissions inside tmp/ and not only the directory.
[/quote]
Your musing is correct. You only needed to execute (as [i]root[/i]) a [b]chmod 1777 /tmp[/b] command.

[quote]
Well , now , i have my Centos 5.4 x86_64 migrated to xfs , and all is working fine and i can log on with my normal user without problems.
[/quote]
That's good to read. Thanks for reporting back with your success.