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Altoid

Member

Registered: 2017-05-07

Posts: 1,592  

Configuring persistence

Hello:

While on the way to finish configuring a persistent Alien-OS to generate a new live *.iso, I have come across a(nother) problem.

Alien-OS would boot into persistence with user=Alien-OS in the kernel command line by default.
Add persistence to the line and that was it.

From then on, to make any administrative changes you would just sudo them on.
Not my cup of tea but that is how it is set up by default and was planning to change that by adding a password to root and a user, just for reminder's sake if anything.

After doing a major update (this was a jessie from 2 years ago) and removing a number of unneeded things, I rebooted with persistence and was greeted by LightDM asking for a password to log-in as Alien-OS or as Other.

I had not yet set a root password or a new user yet so I'm at a loss here.
It probably has to do with whatever went into the update.

I have root access to the persistence partition and folders via my Devuan installation but don't know what to change or add to be able to log in.

I have tried renaming /persistence/etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf to lightdm.old but that did not work.

The solution may be (?) in /persistence/etc/pam.d/login but I don't know how to deal with that.

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance,

A.

Altoid

Member

Registered: 2017-05-07

Posts: 1,592  

Re: Configuring persistence

Hello:

The solution may be (?) in ...

I managed to (sort of) fix things.

I was able to drop to a shell and by means of sudo su become root.
Then I gave root a new password and added a user with his own password.

So, now I was able to log-in both as root with administrative privileges and as user.

Certain that I could log-in under both IDs, I tried to get rid of user alien-os, whose password I did not know and name I did not like.

Unfortunately, that was not possible as it was working with some process.

Alien-OS@root╺─╸[~]  userdel alien-os
userdel: user alien-os is currently used by process 2890
Alien-OS@root╺─╸[~]  

So I figured I could keep it in lieu of the newly created user which I would then remove.
No big deal ....

So, as root, changed alien-os' password and the problem would be solved.

Alien-OS@root╺─╸[~]  passwd alien-os
Enter new UNIX password: 
Retype new UNIX password: 
passwd: password updated successfully
Alien-OS@root╺─╸[~]  

I then rebooted and when I logged in as user alien-os with the new password, instead of bringing up the desktop or saying that the password was not valid, LightDM came back like if nothing had happened: I typed the password at least ten times and it came back without logging me in every time.

I logged on as root again to see what was going on ie: see what users were in the system.
It was a surprise of sorts:

 Alien-OS@root╺─╸[~]  users
alien-os alien-os alien-os alien-os alien-os alien-os root
» Alien-OS@root╺─╸[~]  

I installed members and used it with groups try to see who was what:

Alien-OS@root╺─╸[~]  groups alien-os
alien-os : alien-os cdrom floppy audio dip video plugdev netdev bluetooth
Alien-OS@root╺─╸[~]  

Alien-OS@root╺─╸[~]  members alien-os
alien-os
Alien-OS@root╺─╸[~]  

I have always read/been told that users have unique names ie: there could only be one user with alien-os for a name.

But (unless I am missing something) in this case we are in front of six users sharing the same name.

This is where I stop and ask if anyone can shed some light into this.

Thanks in advance,

A.

Last edited by Altoid (2019-11-24 03:21:31)

chris2be8

Member

Registered: 2018-08-11

Posts: 313  

Re: Configuring persistence

First try cat /etc/passwd and see if there's more than 1 entry for alien-os.

Then pwck -r and grpck -r as root to check for errors in the relevant files. They can delete incorrect entries if run without -r (which means read-only) but read the man pages and use that with caution.

Chris

chris2be8

Member

Registered: 2018-08-11

Posts: 313  

Re: Configuring persistence

A second thought,  users gets it's info from /var/run/utmp but that isn't always accurate (on my system users says nothing even though I'm certainly logged on to it). Try ps -ef | grep alien-os to see what tasks are running as it.

Chris

Altoid

Member

Registered: 2017-05-07

Posts: 1,592  

Re: Configuring persistence

Hello:

First try cat /etc/passwd and see if there's more than 1 entry for alien-os.

OK.

Alien-OS@groucho╺─╸[~]  cat /etc/passwd
root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash
daemon:x:1:1:daemon:/usr/sbin:/usr/sbin/nologin
bin:x:2:2:bin:/bin:/usr/sbin/nologin
sys:x:3:3:sys:/dev:/usr/sbin/nologin
sync:x:4:65534:sync:/bin:/bin/sync
games:x:5:60:games:/usr/games:/usr/sbin/nologin
man:x:6:12:man:/var/cache/man:/usr/sbin/nologin
lp:x:7:7:lp:/var/spool/lpd:/usr/sbin/nologin
mail:x:8:8:mail:/var/mail:/usr/sbin/nologin
news:x:9:9:news:/var/spool/news:/usr/sbin/nologin
uucp:x:10:10:uucp:/var/spool/uucp:/usr/sbin/nologin
proxy:x:13:13:proxy:/bin:/usr/sbin/nologin
www-data:x:33:33:www-data:/var/www:/usr/sbin/nologin
backup:x:34:34:backup:/var/backups:/usr/sbin/nologin
list:x:38:38:Mailing List Manager:/var/list:/usr/sbin/nologin
irc:x:39:39:ircd:/var/run/ircd:/usr/sbin/nologin
gnats:x:41:41:Gnats Bug-Reporting System (admin):/var/lib/gnats:/usr/sbin/nologin
nobody:x:65534:65534:nobody:/nonexistent:/usr/sbin/nologin
messagebus:x:100:104::/var/run/dbus:/bin/false
avahi-autoipd:x:101:105:Avahi autoip daemon,,,:/var/lib/avahi-autoipd:/bin/false
colord:x:102:108:colord colour management daemon,,,:/var/lib/colord:/bin/false
saned:x:103:109::/var/lib/saned:/bin/false
lightdm:x:104:110:Light Display Manager:/var/lib/lightdm:/bin/false
usbmux:x:105:46:usbmux daemon,,,:/var/lib/usbmux:/bin/false
ntp:x:106:112::/home/ntp:/bin/false
uuidd:x:107:113::/run/uuidd:/bin/false

alien-os:x:1000:1000:,,,:/home/alien-os:/bin/bash

groucho:x:1001:1001:,,,:/home/groucho:/bin/bash
Alien-OS@groucho╺─╸[~]  

Seems there's only one entry.

Then pwck -r and grpck -r as root to check for errors in the relevant files.

OK.

Alien-OS@root╺─╸[groucho]  pwck -r
user 'lp': directory '/var/spool/lpd' does not exist
user 'news': directory '/var/spool/news' does not exist
user 'uucp': directory '/var/spool/uucp' does not exist
user 'www-data': directory '/var/www' does not exist
user 'list': directory '/var/list' does not exist
user 'irc': directory '/var/run/ircd' does not exist
user 'gnats': directory '/var/lib/gnats' does not exist
user 'nobody': directory '/nonexistent' does not exist
user 'saned': directory '/var/lib/saned' does not exist
user 'usbmux': directory '/var/lib/usbmux' does not exist
user 'ntp': directory '/home/ntp' does not exist
pwck: no changes
Alien-OS@root╺─╸[groucho]

Alien-OS@root╺─╸[groucho]  grpck -r
Alien-OS@root╺─╸[groucho]  

... can delete incorrect entries if run without -r (which means read-only) but read the man pages ...

I'll read about what it does before I use it without -r.

Try ps -ef | grep alien-os to see what tasks are running as it.

Alien-OS@groucho╺─╸[~]  ps -ef | grep alien-os
alien-os  2885  2763  0 17:27 tty5     00:00:00 -bash
alien-os  2886  2760  0 17:27 tty2     00:00:00 -bash
alien-os  2887  2762  0 17:27 tty4     00:00:00 -bash
alien-os  2888  2761  0 17:27 tty3     00:00:00 -bash
alien-os  2889  2764  0 17:27 tty6     00:00:00 -bash
alien-os  2890  2759  0 17:27 tty1     00:00:00 -bash
groucho   3469  3408  0 17:33 pts/0    00:00:00 grep alien-os
Alien-OS@groucho╺─╸[~]  

There they are ...
Six tasks.
One for each of the alien-os users.

Alien-OS@groucho╺─╸[~]  users
alien-os alien-os alien-os alien-os alien-os alien-os groucho
Alien-OS@groucho╺─╸[~]  

It's all over my head.
No idea what to make of it.

Thanks for your input.  =-)

Best,

A.

chris2be8

Member

Registered: 2018-08-11

Posts: 313  

Re: Configuring persistence

Hello,

Looking at that I think it's all OK, you don't need to fix anything. System IDs not having a home dir is not a problem.

tty1 to tty6 are the text terminals you can log on to from ctrl-alt-f1 to f6 (at least on Devuan). It's odd that alien-os appears to be logged on to them if you havn't logged on there, but probably harmless.

Chris

Altoid

Member

Registered: 2017-05-07

Posts: 1,592  

Re: Configuring persistence

Hello:

... think it's all OK, you don't need to fix anything.
... System IDs not having a home dir is not a problem.
... odd that alien-os appears to be logged on to them if you havn't logged on there ...

Thanks for the input.  =-)

But I gave up on the Alien-OS live distribution, has too many unknowns for my liking and has not been updated for the past two years.
Also, some unknown (have to see if it reproduces later on) was borking up the USBs filesystem and cause for it to not be recognised at boot by the Ultra24's BIOS.

I heeded fsmithred's sound advice and went for the Devuan ASCII vbox image to which I am adding the basic applications I need to make a very slim live *.iso of my own.
This way I know where it came from and how it got to be.

So there'll be no surprises save those due to my own incompetence. =^)

Cheers,

A.