Logging into Suse

prabhu137 · May 5, 2010, 7:08am

I am using OpenSuse 11.0 . I have a user account with around 40 GB data & i could not login into tat account now in default mode. I changed the session type to failsafe & logged in terminal mode.its working. I created another account & I can easily logon into it in default mode. Can anyone suggest me how to resolve this issue?

caf4926 · May 5, 2010, 7:29am

Possibly you need to re-install a graphics driver.

gogalthorp · May 5, 2010, 7:32am

May be corrupted configuration files in the GUI. Which do you use?

caf4926 · May 5, 2010, 7:35am

Actually, this seems more likely now I re-read it.

gnome or kde?

DenverD · May 5, 2010, 8:16am

prabhu137 wrote:
> I am using OpenSuse 11.0 . I have a user account with around 40 GB data
> & i could not login into tat account now in default mode. I changed the
> session type to failsafe & logged in terminal mode.its working. I
> created another account & I can easily logon into it in default mode.
> Can anyone suggest me how to resolve this issue?

what you describe is often the result of logging into KDE, Gnome, XFCE
or other Linux desktop environments as the root user and (somehow)
damaging the permissions of one or more of the files in your home
directory…especially those two hidden files named .ICEauthority and
…Xauthority

to solve this you need to do three things:

THING ONE:
read the caveat in my sig

THING TWO
in your failsafe terminal issue the following commands (read all and
see notes, marked with <number, prior to beginning…do not enter
<note symbols/numbers into the terminal)


su -					<1
cd /home/[YourID] 			<2
ls -hal .*authority			<3
chown [YourID]:users .*authority	<4
ls -hal .*authority			<5
chmod 600 .*authority			<6
shutdown -r now				<7

NOTES:
<1: do not overlook the dash (-) one space behind the su…then type
in the root password when asked, you will not see what you type

<2: instead of typing “[YourID]” type prabhu137 if that is your id
on this machine which is NOT allowing you to login

<3: i suppose the result of the ls will be about like this:


-rw------- 1 root root 1.1K 2010-05-05 05:51 .ICEauthority
-rw------- 1 root root  163 2010-05-05 05:50 .Xauthority

if yours does not show root ownership do NOT proceed as this will not
help you…post again…

<4. this command will reset ownership of those two files to you
ONLY…of course, use your actual ID and do not overlook the semicolon
between “YourID” and “users” and, do not overlook the full stop period
(.) in front of “*authority”

<5. this step is just so you can confirm those two files are now
correctly see as:


-rw------- 1 [YourID] users 1.1K 2010-05-05 05:51 .ICEauthority
-rw------- 1 [YourID] users 163 2010-05-05 05:50 .Xauthority

if the leading string is not “-rw-------” then enter the command in
step six (those two files MUST be read/writable by you ONLY)

<6 this step will probably not be needed, use it ONLY if the others
have been given read, write or execute permissions, like if the
leading string is like -rw-rw----- (or any other variation) go to step
6, otherwise skip 6 and go to 7…

<7 if the file ownerships and read/write/execute authority as as
seen in note 5 about, proceed with this step which will cause your
system to shutdown and reboot…when it does, cross your fingers and
try to login using your ID, if you are successful go to the following

THING THREE:
you should never log into KDE/Gnome/XFCE or any other *nix-like
graphical user interface desktop environment as root…

doing so 1) opens you up to several different security problems, 2)
too many too easy ways to damage your system no matter how careful
your actions (example: just browsing in your home directory while
logged into KDE/Gnome/etc as root can lock you out later as yourself
due to permissions damage), 3) and, anyway logging into KDE/etc as
root is never required to do any and all administrative duties…

so, always log in as yourself, and “become root” by using a root
powered application (like YaST, File Manager Superuser Mode) or using
“su -”, sudo, kdesu, or gnomesu in a terminal to launch whatever tool
is needed (like Kwrite to edit a config file)…read more on all that
here:

http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Login_as_root
http://docs.kde.org/stable/en/kdebase-runtime/userguide/root.html
http://tinyurl.com/6ry6yd
http://tinyurl.com/ydbwssh