[NCLUG] No shell in X

[J. Paul Reed]

On Thu, 13 Sep 2001, HDS wrote:

> All,
>     I have been toying with different security ideas and seem to have
> screwed up my non-root user's shell privelidges. I get the following
> error:
>
>     There has been an error while loggin in!
>
> I have done so many modifications I am unable to remember them all. Any
> idea would be greatly appreciated. I am running Red-Hat 7 and Gnome.

Are you using xterm or gterm or something?

xterm is suid so that it can talk to the X server and login as the user
that created it (and probably some other reasons).

If you take away the suid bit, xterm can't login as you... this may be what
the problem is.

Later,
Paul
   ---------------------------------------------------------------------
   J. Paul Reed               preed at sigkill.com || web.sigkill.com/preed
   It's amazing what a little brain damage will do for your credibility.
                                              -- Leonard Shelby, Memento