Lost User

[Don Flinn]

On Thu, 2005-11-17 at 10:30 -0500, Don Flinn wrote:
> On Thu, 2005-11-17 at 09:55 +0100, Thomas Widhalm wrote:
> > Am Mittwoch, den 16.11.2005, 23:26 -0500 schrieb Don Flinn:
> > > Hi
> > > 
> > > The other week I was trying to remove OpenOffice to install OpenOffice
> > > 2.0 because of the repeated crashing of the Fedora version of
> > > OpenOffice.  Somehow, I made my login inoperable.  When I tried to login
> > > the screen went blank for some time then came back to the login screen.
> > > Logging in as root I created another user.  Although I can reach the old
> > > user directories through /home/oldusr it is a real pain especially with
> > > my eudora mail (can't read my old mail).  I tried to recreate the
> > > password for the old user by using passwd, but that didn't cure my
> > > problem.  Anyone have a solution to get my old user login to work again.
> > > 
> > 
> > Hi!
> > 
> > I encountered a similar problem, with /home directories mounted via NFS
> > on a SuSE box. When I tried to log in without having my own home, I
> > crashed back to the login screen while using X.
> > 
> > Does your home (and the files in it) still belong to you? And are the
> > permissions set the appropriate way?
> > 
> > Greetings,
> > Thomas
> > 
> > > Don
> > > 
> > 
> > > 
> > -- 
> > Thomas Widhalm
> > University of Salzburg, Austria
> > IT- Services
> > Systems Management
> > Unix Systems
> > pgp/gpg Key: 6265BAE6
> > 
> 
> I think that is the problem.  looking at /var/messages after the failed
> login attempt I see:
> 
> Nov 17 09:54:00 flinn gdm[2561]: gdm_slave_session_start: /home/donfl is
> not owned by uid 502.
> Nov 17 09:54:00 flinn gdm[2561]: gdm_auth_user_add: /home/donfl is not
> owned by uid 502.
> 
> Looking at /etc/passwd:
> donfl:x:502:503:Don Flinn:/home/donfl:/bin/bash
> 
> Should that be 502:502 ?
> I'm still a newbe at linux but am trying to learn.
> 
> Don
> 
> 
> 
> Don Flinn
> President, Flint Security LLC
> Tel: 781-856-7230
> Fax: 781-631-7693
> e-mail: flinn at alum.mit.edu
> http://flintsecurity.com

Problem Solved:  The home directory for the lost user was owned by root.
I evidently made that mistake when trying to remove OpenOffice, although
I don't remember doing it.  Changing ownership back to the lost user
solved the problem.

Thanks all for your help.

Don