Unable to login - Password input box does not appear

[Reinhard Tartler]

This is in a NIS/Kerberos environment with shared users in a lab. /home is on NFS. I have configured lightdm to disable the list of users with these entries in /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf:

[SeatDefaults]
greeter-session=unity-greeter
allow-guest=false
greeter-hide-users=true
greeter-show-manual-login=true

The symptoms are actually quite similar to bug #986967, but happen again in quantal. I can enter my user name, but the password box won't appear.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.10
Package: lightdm 1.3.3-0ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.5.0-13.14-generic 3.5.3
Uname: Linux 3.5.0-13-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.5.1-0ubuntu4
Architecture: amd64
Date: Fri Aug 31 10:02:29 2012
ExecutablePath: /usr/lib/lightdm/lightdm-greeter-session
InterpreterPath: /bin/dash
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 SHELL=/bin/false
 LANG=C.UTF-8
 LANGUAGE=C.UTF-8
 LC_MESSAGES=C.UTF-8
SourcePackage: lightdm
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Reinhard Tartler (siretart)]

Screenshot of the situation.

There is not much to see neither on the photo nor on my screen, because that's the issue: the box is perfectly empty besides the label "Login"

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

I'm seeing the same here.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Could be an unity-greeter issue as well

[Michael Terry (mterry)]

Can't reproduce on my normal non-NFS setup, so the NFS bit must be important.

I would not at all be surprised if unity-greeter is responsible for this. Is there an easy way to fake NFS /home without actually doing it?

[Reinhard Tartler (siretart)]

On Do, Sep 06, 2012 at 19:47:25 (CEST), Michael Terry wrote:

> Can't reproduce on my normal non-NFS setup, so the NFS bit must be
> important.
>
> I would not at all be surprised if unity-greeter is responsible for
> this. Is there an easy way to fake NFS /home without actually doing
> it?

You could try to install an nfs server on localhost and mount from
there. However, I'd be a bit surprised if that actually worked.

Setting up nfs is really super easy:

apt-get install nfs-kernel-server
mkdir -p /srv/nfs/home
echo /srv/nfs <clientip>(rw,async) | tee /etc/exports
exportfs -rv
# server done, you might want to create the actual home directory with
# correct owner and permissions, though

on the client:
sudo apt-get install nfs-common
sudo mount <serverip>:/srv/nfs/home /home
#client done

--
Gruesse/greetings,
Reinhard Tartler, KeyID 945348A4

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

nfs doesn't matter, I'm not using it on that box.

[Michael Terry (mterry)]

Timo, can you reproduce on latest quantal?

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

Michael, still the same. All I see is a solid color box with rounded corners :)

[Michael Terry (mterry)]

Timo, can you upload your /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf? I want to be sure I'm testing with the same settings you're using.

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

Hrm, looks like on quantal you need 'greeter-show-manual-login=true' which is new since precise. Adding that makes it work here...

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

I'd say that if both 'greeter-hide-users=true' and 'allow-guest=false' are set lightdm should fall back on 'greeter-show-manual-login=true' in order to make old configs work without admin labor..

[Reinhard Tartler (siretart)]

On Do, Sep 13, 2012 at 23:38:29 (CEST), Michael Terry wrote:

> ** Changed in: lightdm (Ubuntu Quantal)
> Status: Confirmed => Incomplete

Can you please give a rationale for that change? What Information is
exactly missing to process this bug further?

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

it was probably due to the question for me

marking as triaged

[Reinhard Tartler (siretart)]

On Fr, Sep 14, 2012 at 06:16:32 (CEST), Timo Aaltonen wrote:

> Hrm, looks like on quantal you need 'greeter-show-manual-login=true'
> which is new since precise. Adding that makes it work here...

As shown in the original description, I already did have that setting in
my config. Please note that with that setting, I did get a prompt to
enter my username, however the *password* box did not appear.

However, the latest upload of lightdm did change things for me. with the
latest lightdm package version, I can confirm that leaving out the
setting greetings-show-manual-login makes me unable to even enter my
username. However, with the setting, I get both the input box for the
username and the password box, and logging in becomes possible.

--
Gruesse/greetings,
Reinhard Tartler, KeyID 945348A4

[Michael Terry (mterry)]

Thanks Timo and Reinhard for the help, I think I figured this one out. I've got a branch with a fix.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package unity-greeter - 12.10.3-0ubuntu1

---------------
unity-greeter (12.10.3-0ubuntu1) quantal; urgency=low

  * New upstream release
    - Rearrange some UI bits (LP: #1049231, LP: #1049235, LP: #1049236,
      LP: #1049239)
    - After a remote login error, do not use cache when trying same user
      again
    - When no users and no manual entry, force manual entry to appear
      (LP: #1044251)
    - When switching between monitors, re-adjust user names (LP: #1043604)
    - Center remote login help dialog
    - Use the xsettings plugin to apply icons-in-menus gsetting
      (LP: #927236)
  * debian/unity-greeter.pkla:
    - Fix policykit file to not be order-dependent and spell out the
      NetworkManager permissions instead of using a wildcard.
      LP: #1048522
  * debian/control:
    - Add some Build-Depends for new test suite
  * debian/patches/01_add_remote_login_help_icon.patch:
    - Drop, remote login help icon is included upstream
  * debian/patches/02_use_remote_login_hint.patch:
    - Update to apply again
 -- Michael Terry <email address hidden> Mon, 17 Sep 2012 13:31:13 -0400