Bug 620106 – [e-mail]: Failed at step PAM spawning /usr/lib/systemd/systemd: Operation not permitted

• Product: Gentoo Linux
• Status: RESOLVED NEEDINFO

[Description raffaele_at_gentoo 2017-05-29 11:36:26 UTC]

Created attachment 474630 [details]
emerge --info

Gnome Display Manager (gdm) does not start. If I login from the text console and then issue startx, gnome-session runs fine. Tried upstream but the bug was closed immediately as distribution problem (https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/6038).

Apparently the systemd User Manager for user gdm cannot start:

# systemctl status [e-mail]
● [e-mail] - User Manager for UID 32
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/user@.service; static; vendor preset: disabled)
Active: failed (Result: protocol) since Fri 2017-05-26 08:17:25 CEST; 6h ago
Process: 516 ExecStart=/usr/lib/systemd/systemd --user (code=exited, status=224/PAM)
Main PID: 516 (code=exited, status=224/PAM)

May 26 08:17:25 ws2912 systemd[1]: Starting User Manager for UID 32...
May 26 08:17:25 ws2912 systemd[516]: [e-mail]: Failed at step PAM spawning /usr/lib/systemd/systemd: Operation not permitted
May 26 08:17:25 ws2912 systemd[1]: Failed to start User Manager for UID 32.
May 26 08:17:25 ws2912 systemd[1]: [e-mail]: Unit entered failed state.
May 26 08:17:25 ws2912 systemd[1]: [e-mail]: Failed with result 'protocol'.

The log taken with systemd debug log level and PAM debug level is attached in systemd-log.txt.
According to the log gdm is stated successfully at 10:16:52 (line 48); then on line 2502 the system tries to start the User Manager for user GDM (32) but fails to start (line 3209 and following).

Package versions:

sys-apps/systemd
     Installed versions:  233-r1(05:53:09 AM 05/20/2017)(acl gcrypt kmod lz4 pam policykit seccomp ssl -apparmor -audit -build -cryptsetup -curl -doc -elfutils -gnuefi -http -idn -importd -lzma -nat -qrcode -selinux -sysv-utils -test -vanilla -xkb ABI_MIPS="-n32 -n64 -o32" ABI_PPC="-32 -64" ABI_S390="-32 -64" ABI_X86="32 -64 -x32")

sys-auth/pambase
     Installed versions:  20150213^b(09:02:10 AM 05/22/2017)(cracklib gnome-keyring nullok sha512 systemd -consolekit -debug -minimal -mktemp -pam_krb5 -pam_ssh -passwdqc -securetty -selinux)

sys-libs/pam
     Installed versions:  1.3.0(10:20:27 AM 05/25/2017)(berkdb cracklib filecaps nls pie -audit -debug -nis -selinux -test -vim-syntax ABI_MIPS="-n32 -n64 -o32" ABI_PPC="-32 -64" ABI_S390="-32 -64" ABI_X86="32 -64 -x32")

[Comment 1 raffaele_at_gentoo 2017-05-29 11:38:08 UTC]

Created attachment 474632 [details]
systemd log with debug level and PAM build with USE=debug

[Comment 2 raffaele_at_gentoo 2017-05-29 11:42:40 UTC]

I should add that this is a new Gnome installation, previously the system ran LXDE/OpenRC. GDM never worked since I switched to Gnome/systemd.

Also I already checked the suggestions made in https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/4342 without success.

[Comment 3 Jonas Stein 2017-06-09 21:59:45 UTC]

It is sad to read that you have problems with the software. The situation seems to be a bit more complicate and requires some analysis.
We can not help you efficiently via bug tracker. The bug tracker aims rather on specific problems in .ebuilds and less on individual systems. 

I have had very good experience on the gentoo IRC [1] with questions like this. Of course there are also forums and mailing lists [2,3].
I hope you understand, that I will close the bug here therefore and wish you good luck on one of the mentioned channels [4].
Please reopen the ticket in order to provide an indication for an error in the ebuild.

[1] https://www.gentoo.org/get-involved/irc-channels/
[2] https://forums.gentoo.org/
[3] https://www.gentoo.org/get-involved/mailing-lists/all-lists.html
[4] https://www.gentoo.org/support/

[Comment 4 raffaele_at_gentoo 2017-09-05 06:18:42 UTC]

Somebody found a solution that works for me:

    1. Unmerge gdm.
    2. Remove the gdm user, the gdm group and any files in /var/lib/gdm.
    3. Merge gdm. This created a new gdm user with a different uid.

ref:

https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/6038#issuecomment-326947075