Bug 98608 – pam update brakes xsane scanning from gimp

• Product: Gentoo Linux
• Status: RESOLVED FIXED

[Description David D. Huff Jr. 2005-07-10 16:30:36 UTC]

If you start gimp as root it will hang on the startup when xsane is scanning for devices. If you're starting as a user gimp will never find/access your scanner.

The most recent update to pam has a new pam_console.so that needs configured.

The easiest fix is to add pam_console to your use flags and add the following lines to the system-auth or uncomment them if you /etc/pam.d/system-auth file is current.

# If you want to enable pam_console, uncomment the following line
# and read carefully README.pam_console in /usr/share/doc/pam*
session    optional	pam_console.so


We depend on pam so much why does it have to be so painful? When multiple updates are run it is impossible to see the messages at the end of the emerge. I wish there was a way to review emerge messages over a period of time, say the last week. Or just give us a flag so that we can select to use a "meta flag" that turns on every option of every application. 

The real p**ser was that the line that needs to be uncommented appeared in the February ._cfg file and not the one delivered last week which didn't make a heck of a lot of sense since it didn't take effect until ver.78!

Debugging this was a little more difficult than most people would appreciate.

[Comment 1 Diego Elio Pettenò (RETIRED) 2005-07-11 03:58:13 UTC]

Adding pam_console to system-auth is *bad* as it messes up more things than 
the ones it takes right. 
Please see if you are in the right group to access your scanner devices and 
the devices have the right permissions. 
 
pam_console, again, is not the fix. 
 

[Comment 2 David D. Huff Jr. 2005-07-11 06:41:40 UTC]

What is the fix then? Will setting the use code to pam_console *and* adding the
user to the scanner group work? Because just adding the user to the scanner
group by itself will not work.

A little more clear explaination would be helpful.

[Comment 3 Martin Schlemmer (RETIRED) 2005-07-11 07:19:42 UTC]

If its a usb scanner, need to add user to 'usb' group as well ....

[Comment 4 David D. Huff Jr. 2005-07-11 07:31:09 UTC]

Thanks, compiling with use code pam_console and adding the user/userid to
scanner did the trick.
I'm satisfied, you can close this.

[Comment 5 Martin Schlemmer (RETIRED) 2005-07-11 08:56:25 UTC]

Would still rather have you testing without pam_console, but ok ...

[Comment 6 David D. Huff Jr. 2005-07-11 09:08:57 UTC]

No, no. I re-commented the pam_console in system-auth just like you suggested.
Added users,userid to scanner, restarted X and it worked fine. No, your
suggestion worked as instructed, thank you very much.

[Comment 7 Martin Schlemmer (RETIRED) 2005-07-11 09:34:25 UTC]

Ok, great, thanks.