gnome-session fails when "alias ls='ls --color'" in .profile

[spliffster]

Binary package hint: gnome-session

the summary says it all.

my .profile file looks like this:
--
#alias ls="ls --color"
alias r="ssh -X 10.0.0.32";
alias rr="ssh -X 10.0.0.32 sudo";

export PATH=.:/home/spliffy/bin:/home/spliffy/bin/bpmdj-2.9:$PATH
--

my default shell is bash. when i uncomment the first line in my .profile file then after entering user/pw in gdm, launching the gnome-session will fail with no meaningfull error message.

the .xsession-errors looks like this
--
spliffy@bpmdj:~$ cat .xsession-errors
/etc/gdm/PreSession/Default: Registering your session with wtmp and utmp
/etc/gdm/PreSession/Default: running: /usr/bin/sessreg -a -w /var/log/wtmp -u /var/run/utmp -x "/var/lib/gdm/:0.Xservers" -h "" -l ":0" "spliffy"
/etc/gdm/Xsession: Beginning session setup...
 ... and here a message that gnome-term (or xterm) will be loaded ...
--

[spliffster (spliffster)]

this is reproducable on 3 x86 pcs running dapper drake. This problem didn't exist with the previous release.

[Edward Cho (조광일) (zerokarmaleft)]

this may be a duplicate of https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+source/gnome-session/+bug/45951

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

A .profile with:

"#alias ls="ls --color"
alias r="ssh -X 10.0.0.32";
alias rr="ssh -X 10.0.0.32 sudo";"

on my box works just fine. Does anybody else get that issue?

[Edward Cho (조광일) (zerokarmaleft)]

uncommenting the ls alias causes the errant behavior for me, and was the only line in my profile when I encountered this. commenting it out also fixes the symptoms.

[Matthew Wang (dotwayman)]

I encountered this problem in 6.06 today. If you have set 'ls' as an alias with argument '--color' in /etc/profile or $HOME/profile, it will be triggered.

The root cause is that, the script /etc/gdm/Xsession will source /etc/profile and $HOME/.profile, then it use "ls $1" to read /etc/X11/Xsession.d, the ANSI color control characters in its output will cause the problem.

Here's the fix: modify /etc/gdm/Xsession, change line 82
    for F in $(ls $1); do
to
   for F in $(/bin/ls $1); do

[Daniel Holbach (dholbach)]

Can everybody check that this resolves the issue? Reassigning to gdm, as it's gdm's ./debian/Xsession that probably needs changing.

[spliffster (spliffster)]

i can confirm the solution mentioned in comment "From: Matthew Wang at 2006-08-05 14:55:35 CEST".

here is a `diff -Nru`patch:

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thanks for your work on that. Do you pick a particular session to get the issue? Does "ls --color /etc/X11/Xsession.d" uses some color on your installation? I'm trying to figure why it's not happening everywhere and why it's breaking the login before applying the patch

[Matthew Wang (dotwayman)]

Sebastien,

My system is built up by the ubuntu 6.06 Live CD (double click install icon
on the desktop), I added the alias to /etc/profile just after first boot.
And I reproduced it easily in another fresh system also. So I think I was
not picking particular session.

"ls --color /etc/X11/Xsession.d" only shows texts with normal color, but
the output is filled with some ansi control chars (use cat -v to prove):

igo: ~ $ /bin/ls --color /etc/X11/Xsession.d | cat -v
^[[0m^[[0m20xorg-common_process-args^[[0m
^[[0m30xorg-common_xresources^[[0m
^[[0m50xorg-common_determine-startup^[[0m
^[[0m55gnome-session_gnomerc^[[0m
^[[0m75dbus_dbus-launch^[[0m
^[[0m90xorg-common_ssh-agent^[[0m
^[[0m99xorg-common_start^[[0m
^[[m

igo: ~ $ md5sum /bin/ls
cf3669f0230ba30c2ddede093bdaa031 /bin/ls

On 8/10/06, Sebastien Bacher <email address hidden> wrote:
>
> Thanks for your work on that. Do you pick a particular session to get
> the issue? Does "ls --color /etc/X11/Xsession.d" uses some color on your
> installation? I'm trying to figure why it's not happening everywhere and
> why it's breaking the login before applying the patch
>
> --
> gnome-session fails when "alias ls='ls --color'" in .profile
> https://launchpad.net/bugs/48876
>

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for tracking that issue, I'll fix that to dapper-updates and edgy next week

[spliffster (spliffster)]

sebastien, matthew,

thanks alot for investigating/incoporating! i have not been able to locate the bogous usage of `ls` instead of `/bin/ls` myself.

Cheers,
Simon

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Fixed to edgy with this upload:

 gdm (2.15.9-0ubuntu2) edgy; urgency=low
 .
   * debian/Xsession:
     - specify "ls" path, fix gnome-session not starting due to some parsing
       issues for people using an ls="ls --color" alias to their profile,
       thanks to Matthew Wang from tracking it and
       suggesting the change (Ubuntu: #48876)

[Jonathan Lim (snowblink)]

Is this going to be fixed for Dapper?

[Daniel Holbach (dholbach)]

That's a case for http://wiki.ubuntu.com/StableReleaseUpdates

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

not a gnome-session bug

[wilk (j-cubizolles)]

This bug has reappeared on my Hardy machine. I need to comment out
alias ls='ls --color'
in ~/.bashrc in order to run start a gnome-session in gdm

[Cezary Baginski (cezary0)]

Confirmed on Hardy.

bug present in /etc/gdm/Xsession, installed from package gdm-2.20.7.

Reason: $(ls $1) is used, which adds ansi color escape sequences

Fix1: change "ls" to "/bin/ls" to ignore the bash/sh alias (in /etc/gdm/Xsession)

Fix2: use run-parts with --list instead of defining a run_patch function (/etc/gdm/Xsession)

Fix3: this a problem in gdm packages, maintained at gnome.org. The bug is probably gone since debian specific folder in gdm has been removed (gdm-2.22). So we will have to wait until gdm-2.22 or higher becomes available in Ubuntu, or ... until someone backports its to gdm-2.20 (which is IMHO unlikely).

Patch attached anyway for anyone interested in a quick fix.