Re: [gentoo-user] [poll] What is your session state?

[Canek Peláez Valdés]

On Sun, Feb 9, 2014 at 4:43 PM, walt <w41ter@×××××.com> wrote:
> Recent threads about consolekit vs logind(systemd) have made me curious, so
> I've been studying...
>
> A few of us have had recent problems with things like plugging USB sticks,
> which once worked transparently but now require root privileges.
>
> I've discovered that my own such problems are caused by this:
>
> $loginctl show-session 1   (I have only one session, cleverly named '1')
>
> Id=1
> Timestamp=Sun 2014-02-09 07:18:32 PST
> TimestampMonotonic=389744251
> VTNr=1
> TTY=/dev/tty1
> Remote=no
> Service=login
> Scope=session-1.scope
> Leader=426
> Audit=1
> Type=tty
> Class=user
> Active=no   <=========================  should be 'yes'
> State=online  <=======================  should be 'active'
>
> Users of consolekit, don't feel neglected.  You should try this instead:
>
> $ck-list-sessions
> Session1:
>         unix-user = '1001'
>         realname = '(null)'
>         seat = 'Seat2'
>         session-type = ''
>         active = FALSE    (correct because I'm ssh'd into a remote box)
>         x11-display = ':0'
>         x11-display-device = '/dev/tty2'
>         display-device = '/dev/tty1'
>         remote-host-name = ''
>         is-local = FALSE
>         on-since = '2014-02-09T22:00:10.750312Z'
>         login-session-id = '1'
>
> Canek explained that the reason my session is not 'active' is that I'm
> not using a Display Manager (gdm kdm lightdm), which talks to logind or
> consolekit and vouches for my physical presence at the local keyboard.
>
> However, when I do the same thing on arch linux (as a virtualbox guest)
> I see that my session (running gnome) is 'active' and I have no trouble
> powering off the virtual machine as an unprivileged user.

Hi Walt; since I already have GNOME 3+systemd, I decided to install
Xfce. Given that all the plumbing is essentially the same for both
desktops, it took less than 15 minutes for portage to emerge it (13
small packages).

I started it like you, with "exec startxcfe4" in my $HOME/.xinitrc.
Boy, I had forgotten how desktops looked at the start of the century.

Anyway, I had exactly the same problem as you; I needed my root
password to mount USB sticks or shutdown the machine. My session was
Active=no, State=online.

As I suspected, if I started Xfce through gdm, everything worked
without any issue; session was Active=yes, State=active, and my root
password was not required for anything. So one workaround is to
install gdm,  but that is ugly (and unnecessary, see below).

> Any ideas how I can fix it?

Yeah, I found the solution on the net:

http://blog.falconindy.com/articles/back-to-basics-with-x-and-systemd.html

Basically, invoke startx passing Xorg the option of which VT you want
to "transfer" for your X11 session:

startx -- vt01

Obviously, that only works if you are in VT 1 (Alt-F1).

> BTW, this helped me to understand some of the buzzwords I used above:
>
> http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/multiseat/

I owe you an apology Walter; I just assumed you had configured
something wrong. I'm just getting used to the fact that with GNOME
3+systemd everything kinda works immediately. Sorry.

With the above solution, everything works with Xfce without asking for
authentication... except adding printers, I suppose.

Regards.

PS: Inside Xfce (which looks surprisingly similar to GNOME 2), I kept
doing the same thing I do on a Mac or Windows machine; pressing the
windows key to bring up the shell overview. I really don't understand
how could I get any work done before using GNOME Shell.
-- 
Canek Peláez Valdés
Posgrado en Ciencia e Ingeniería de la Computación
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México