After requesting an IP by dhcpcd and initiating /etc/init.d/vpnclient start, `vpnclient connect VPNCONFIGFILE` executed in an xterm under xfce4 4.2 crashes the entire computer. I have to hard reset the machine. When performing all the steps in a terminal (tty0) and then perform startxfce4, it works like is should. starting `vpnclient connect VPNCONFIGFILE` in an xterm under KDE also works well. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. startxfce4 2. open a xterm 3. su - 4. dhcpcd eth0 5. /etc/init.d/vpnclient start 6. vpnclient connect UNIZH_VPN Actual Results: The computer completely freezes. Hard reset is necessary! Expected Results: establish the VPN connection * net-misc/cisco-vpnclient-3des Latest version available: 4.6.00.0045-r1 Latest version installed: 4.6.00.0045-r1 * xfce-base/xfce4 Latest version available: 4.2.0 Latest version installed: 4.2.0 * xfce-base/xfce4-extras Latest version available: 4.2.0 Latest version installed: 4.2.0 Gentoo Base System version 1.4.16 Portage 2.0.51.19 (default-linux/x86/2004.3, gcc-3.3.5, glibc-2.3.4.20040808-r1, 2.6.8-gentoo-r10 i686) ================================================================= System uname: 2.6.8-gentoo-r10 i686 Pentium III (Coppermine) Python: dev-lang/python-2.3.4-r1 [2.3.4 (#1, Feb 9 2005, 22:40:31)] ccache version 2.3 [enabled] dev-lang/python: 2.3.4-r1 sys-devel/autoconf: 2.59-r6, 2.13 sys-devel/automake: 1.7.9-r1, 1.8.5-r3, 1.5, 1.4_p6, 1.6.3, 1.9.4 sys-devel/binutils: 2.15.92.0.2-r1 sys-devel/libtool: 1.5.10-r4 virtual/os-headers: 2.6.8.1-r2 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86" AUTOCLEAN="yes" CFLAGS="-O3 -march=pentium3 -fomit-frame-pointer -pipe" CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/kde/3.3/env /usr/kde/3.3/share/config /usr/kde/3.3/shutdown /usr/kde/3/share/config /usr/lib/X11/xkb /usr/share/config /var/qmail/control" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/terminfo /etc/env.d" CXXFLAGS="-O3 -march=pentium3 -fomit-frame-pointer -pipe" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="autoaddcvs autoconfig ccache distlocks fixpackages sandbox sfperms" GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://mirror.switch.ch/ftp/mirror/gentoo/ ftp://mirror.switch.ch/mirror/gentoo/" MAKEOPTS="-j2" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/home/marco/files/ebuilds" SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="x86 X alsa apache2 apm arts avi berkdb bitmap-fonts crypt cups curl dvd emboss encode fam flac font-server foomaticdb fortran gdbm gif gimp gphoto2 gpm gtk2 imagemagick imlib java jpeg kde ldap libg++ libwww mad mikmod mmx motif mp3 mpeg mysql ncurses nls oggvorbis opengl pam pdflib perl png python qt quicktime readline samba scanner sdl slang spell sse ssl svga tcpd tiff truetype truetype-fonts type1-fonts xml2 xmms xv zlib linguas_de" Unset: ASFLAGS, CBUILD, CTARGET, LANG, LC_ALL, LDFLAGS
Are you running your vpnclient connect as root? Also, this doesn't seem to have much to do with the vpn client itself and more to do with XFCE.
I'm running vpnclient connect as root, yes. Shouldn't I? If this is an XFCE related bug, then who is going to reassign is?
Try running your connect as a non-root user and see if it helps. As for who it would assign to, it would probably be a collaborative effort between myself and the xfce maintainers, unless it was deemed positive that it is exclusively a problem with xfce.
vpnclient connect as user does not change anything. The machine freezes completely. I'm willing to help debug this problem; just let me know how to continue.
Do you have another machine that you can ssh into the problem machine with?
Not at the moment; the problem is that I only need the vpnclient at university. I've never testet if the vpnconnection also establishes from at home (where I have another machine to ssh in). In case this works from at home, what should I do after having ssh'd into?
I was just going to see if you could ssh into the machine once it locks up, and if you could gather information from there, such as a process list to see if you can find the locked process.
I just tried to establish a vpn connection from outside of the university lan. Guess what: it worked. But only exactly once (I guess this was a lucky punch). Every further retry resulted in a freeze of the workstation. So I tried to "debug" with an external ssh connection to the frozen machine. The problem is that I can not even ssh into the machine anymore. And an already established ssh connection freezes as well. The only "network" related thing that still works is pinging the frozen machine. Any further suggestions what to do?
I have good news: I nailed down the problem. Starting xfce4 as root does not cause the problem. So what's the difference between user and root? First, there are some appilactions I use as user (skype & gaim) that are in the panel systemtray. But they are not the reason for the crash. Other things I use as user but not as root are some panel plugins. And there is the bug, in particular with the netload plugin. If that plugin is started (as user, alongside skype and gaim), establishing a vpn connection results in locking the system. If netload is not started (but other plugins and applications are), everything works like a charm. I added bcowan@gentoo.org to the cc: list and I hope this is not considered to be offensive.
Not at all... I can definitely see how the netload plugin could cause this, as it would need to update itself as new interfaces came up and down.
Isn't it that the interface (cipsec0) is created with the '/etc/init.d/vpnclient start'? Remember that this does not have any influence on the system's behaviour. It's the 'vpnclient connect CONFIGFILE' that causes the crash.
While the interface is created, the vpnclient connect causes lots of changes to go on depending on your config file. For example, it changes routing and can also disable local interface routing. I'm not saying with certainty what is causing it, just that these could be possible causes.
Can you see if this is resolved by 4.5.03.0190? If not, please REOPEN the bug.
