Terminal emulators can not start a bash shell in 2.6.28-4

[BotLobsta]

On Jaunty amd64, after upgrading to the latest 2.6.28-4 kernel, none of my terminal emulators (xfce4-terminal, gnome-terminal, or xterm) will give me a bash prompt when I start one. Xfce4-terminal does not report any error, gnome-terminal says "There was an error creating a child process for this terminal", and xterm says "No such file or directory. Reason: get_pty: not enough ptys".

After mounting /dev/pts (with the command 'sudo mount -t devpts devpts /dev/pts'), everything works as it should. However, in the 2.6.28-3 kernel, /dev/pts never had to be mounted in order for me to get a terminal. Is this a regression, or is this new behavior correct? And if it is correct, should /dev/pts be mounted automatically or is there another way to fix this issue?

Thanks

uname -a: Linux ubuntu 2.6.28-4-generic #6-Ubuntu SMP Thu Jan 1 22:53:33 UTC 2009 x86_64 GNU/Linux
xfce4-terminal: 0.2.8.3-0ubuntu1
gnome-terminal: 2.24.1.1-0ubuntu2
xterm: 237-1ubuntu1

[Brian Croom (aikoniv)]

Same behavior here.

Linux brian-laptop 2.6.28-4-generic #9-Ubuntu SMP Tue Jan 6 19:34:01 UTC 2009 i686 GNU/Linux

[Jarkko Lietolahti (jarkko-jab)]

Happens here too. Previously 2.6.28-2 worked but with the latest updates (jaunty) gnome-terminal doesn't work work with 2.6.27 either.
 Konsole doesn't work either, so it's not purely gnome related problem. Maybe it's related to bash? I noticed that there's a setting in limits.conf called "- as - address space limit (KB)" maybe this is also related?

[Jarkko Lietolahti (jarkko-jab)]

Didn't notice there's a workaround; i can confirm that using the command "sudo mount -t devpts devpts /dev/pts" does make gnome-terminal work again.

[Jarkko Lietolahti (jarkko-jab)]

Still exists with the latest kernel, or is it even a kernel issue at all?

jarkko@gandalf:~$ uname -a
Linux gandalf 2.6.28-5-generic #15-Ubuntu SMP Fri Jan 23 01:16:33 UTC 2009 x86_64 GNU/Linux

[Gediminas Paulauskas (menesis)]

This is not a kernel issue, since I have the same problem with 2.6.27-11-generic kernel.
I workaround this issue by downgrading udev to intrepid version (124-9).

I have reported this bug before as #321927

[sqn.llc (ghetto2ivy)]

Ditto on the bug in 2.2.28-6-generic. The workaround works here too. Now someone make sure this doesn't make it to the official release please!

[S. Zeid (s-zeid)]

I added this line to my fstab:

devpts /dev/pts devpts rw 0 0

I haven't rebooted yet, but this will probably be a permanent workaround.

[Jarkko Lietolahti (jarkko-jab)]

Ubuntu 8.10 doesn't have such a line in /etc/fstab and it "still" works. Has something changed dramatically somewhere that that line is now required with 9.04?

[Corinne S (ecrire-cs)]

I have also this problem with the error,
how can you edit fstab as root without the terminal ?

[S. Zeid (s-zeid)]

Please look at the description for bug 321927, where it says "Note (2009-04-25
)":
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/321927

Try the solutions there. Press Ctrl+Alt+F6 to get to a virtual
terminal.

Scott

--
Sent from my iPhone

On Apr 29, 2009, at 7:16, Corinne S <email address hidden> wrote:

> *** This bug is a duplicate of bug 321927 ***
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/321927
>
> I have also this problem with the error,
> how can you edit fstab as root without the terminal ?
>
> --
> Terminal emulators can not start a bash shell in 2.6.28-4
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/313947
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.

[Corinne S (ecrire-cs)]

I thought it is a solution, but it is not possible to edit something with gedit like I did with the terminal !
I have the message gkt warning cannot display !
For the bug 321927, I don't see the link with my problem.

[S. Zeid (s-zeid)]

You need to press Ctrl + Alt + F6, enter your username and password to log in to that terminal, and run sudo nano -w <filename>. sudo will ask for your password. To exit nano, press Ctrl+X, Y, ENTER.

[Corinne S (ecrire-cs)]

Thanks I could change fstab, it is now like that :
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
# /dev/sda6
UUID=4038bffc-47be-46f7-983f-0133c1aa8ab6 / ext3 relatime,errors=remount-ro 0 1
# /dev/sda3
UUID=dc428b6a-15c0-433e-a850-3d7e388abe27 /boot ext3 relatime 0 2
# /dev/sda5
UUID=e7d63f50-5236-4f2b-aa2d-ee255061945b none swap sw 0 0
/dev/scd0 /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto,exec,utf8 0 0
#usbfs
none /proc/bus/usb usbfs devgid=46,devmode=666 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts rw 0 0

The last row is the row I added, but I still have the error with the terminal.

I looked for an other terminal xterm (it is installed, but I don't know where I can catch it)
and I tried an update, and I had the error "can't clone pty" (in french "échec de clonage de pty") ... is it perhaps a problem what goes with the terminal ?
I don't know waht is pty !

[Corinne S (ecrire-cs)]

I read the solution, but, I think it is to complicated for me.
I think, perhaps the easiest way is to make a new installation.

[Corinne S (ecrire-cs)]

I made an update, and now it's ok, I suppose the bug is fixed !

[Percherie (percherie)]

Hello everyone,

I had this problem this morning and it is the corruption of the file / etc / group that no longer contained the list of user privileges. If the file is correct, another investigation found that at the end of comment.

Here is the file before the correction:

root:x:0:
daemon:x:1:
bin:x:2:
sys:x:3:
lp:x:7:
mail:x:8:
news:x:9:
uucp:x:10:
man:x:12:
proxy:x:13:
audio:x:29:pulse,percherie,timidity
www-data:x:33:
backup:x:34:
list:x:38:
irc:x:39:
gnats:x:41:
games:x:60:
nogroup:x:65534:
libuuid:x:101:
syslog:x:102:
messagebus:x:106:
avahi-autoipd:x:110:
avahi:x:111:
couchdb:x:113:
haldaemon:x:114:
saned:x:116:
pulse:x:117:
gdm:x:119:
percherie:x:1000:percherie
timidity:x:121:
debian-tor:x:122:

And after the correction (replace user percherie by your name):

root:x:0:
daemon:x:1:
bin:x:2:
sys:x:3:
adm:x:4:percherie
tty:x:5:
disk:x:6:
lp:x:7:
mail:x:8:
news:x:9:
uucp:x:10:
man:x:12:
proxy:x:13:
kmem:x:15:
dialout:x:20:percherie
fax:x:21:percherie
voice:x:22:
cdrom:x:24:percherie
floppy:x:25:
tape:x:26:percherie
sudo:x:27:
audio:x:29:pulse,timidity,percherie
dip:x:30:percherie
www-data:x:33:
backup:x:34:
operator:x:37:
list:x:38:
irc:x:39:
src:x:40:
gnats:x:41:
shadow:x:42:
utmp:x:43:
video:x:44:percherie
sasl:x:45:
plugdev:x:46:percherie
staff:x:50:
games:x:60:
users:x:100:
nogroup:x:65534:
libuuid:x:101:
syslog:x:102:
fuse:x:103:percherie
lpadmin:x:104:percherie
ssl-cert:x:105:
messagebus:x:106:
crontab:x:107:
mlocate:x:108:
ssh:x:109:
avahi-autoipd:x:110:
avahi:x:111:
netdev:x:112:percherie
couchdb:x:113:
haldaemon:x:114:
admin:x:115:percherie
saned:x:116:
pulse:x:117:
pulse-access:x:118:
gdm:x:119:
percherie:x:1000:percherie
sambashare:x:120:percherie
polkituser:x:121:
timidity:x:122:
debian-tor:x:124:
vboxusers:x:123:root,percherie
winbindd_priv:x:125:

If this file is correct, you can boot into recovery mode and edit the file /ect/sudoers with command visudo
  export EDITOR=vi && sudo visudo

And add after
# Members of the admin group may gain root privileges
%admin ALL=(ALL) ALL

This ligne
<your_username> ALL=(ALL) ALL