Re: [gdm-list] FailsafeXServer - gdm keeps restarting X

[Bryce Harrington <bryce bryceharrington org>]

Here's some photos of the failsafe mode if anyone's interested:

  http://people.ubuntu.com/~bryce/BulletProofX/

Bryce

On Fri, Aug 24, 2007 at 01:36:27PM -0700, Bryce Harrington wrote:
> Heya,
> 
> I am writing a FailsafeXServer handler for Ubuntu[1] but am running into
> a gdm issue, where gdm keeps spawning X sessions while the failsafe
> server is running.
> 
> Here is a test case to recreate the issue:
> 
>   1.  Copy your /etc/X11/xorg.conf to /etc/X11/xorg.conf.failsafe
>   2.  Invalidate your /etc/X11/xorg.conf by changing your graphics
>       driver to "foobar"
>   3.  Copy the script listed below[2] to /etc/gdm/failsafeExample
>   4.  In /etc/gdm/gdm.conf set the following:
>       FailsafeXServer=/etc/gdm/failsafeExample
>   5.  /etc/init.d/gdm restart
> 
> On my system, this the screen blanks 3 times and then shows the
> HellowWorld message box properly.  But after a minute or so, the screen
> switches to the whiptail error message saying, "There already appears to
> be an X server running on display :0. ....."
> 
> I've dug through the source code a bit, but I'm not super familiar with
> gdm internals so am not certain what's going on.  I notice in
> deal_with_x_crashes() that it sets d->failsafe_xserver = TRUE when it
> has a defined failsafe command, and I wonder if perhaps a check for this
> simply needs to be added somewhere?
> 
> Advice on this would be most appreciated.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Bryce Harrington
> bryce canonical com
> 
> 
> [1]:  https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/bullet-proof-x
> 
> [2]:  /etc/gdm/failsafeExample
> 
> #!/bin/bash
> 
> client="/usr/bin/zenity"
> clientargs="--warning --text HelloWorld "
> server=/usr/bin/X
> serverargs="-br -once -config /etc/X11/xorg.conf.failsafe"
> display=:0
> 
> echo "xinit $client $clientargs -- $server $display $serverargs"
> xinit $client $clientargs -- $server $display $serverargs