I received an error when loggin onto the Gnome desktop via the server console. The server is running Red Hat Enterprise Linux ver 4. I’m able to logon to the server via the command line without any issue.
All services were started and in working order.
Below is the error message.
Your session only lasted less than 10 seconds. If you have logged out yourself, this could mean that there is some installation problem or that you may be out of diskspace. Try logging in with one of the
failsafe sessions to see if you can fix this problem.
View deatail (~/.xsession-erros file)
/etc/X11/gdm/PreSession/Default: Registering your session with wtmp and utmp
/etc/X11/gdm/PreSession/Default: running: /usr/bin/X11/sessreg -a -w /var/log/wtmp -u /var/run/utmp -x “/var/gdm/:0.Xservers” -h “” -l “:0” “root”
(gnome-session:6103): Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display:
I tried renaming the .gnome, .gnome_private and .gnome2 folder in /root. Rebooted the server with the reboot command. That did not resoleve the issue.
I created a test userid through the command console. I was able to telnet to the server via SSH using Putty.
# useradd andrew
# passwd andrew
Using the user account andrew I was able to logon to Gnome successfully. So this meant that there was something wrong with root’s profile. The most recent changes was the installation of the Reuters Market
Data System on the Linux server. The installation of the Reuters software was perfromed with the rood ID.
I edited the file /root/.bashrc and commented out the lines that were relavent to the Reuters RMDS application, as shown in the example below.
# vi /etc/.bashrc
# .bashrc
# User specific aliases and functions
alias rm=’rm -i’
alias cp=’cp -i’
alias mv=’mv -i’
# Below lines commented out by Andrew Lin
# REUTERS_BASE=${REUTERS_BASE:-/opt/reuters}
# TIS_BASE=${TIS_BASE:-$REUTERS_BASE/tis}
# . ${TIS_BASE}/config/setenv
# if [ -f “$TRIARCH_SW/dacs/config/dacs.env” ]; then
# . $TRIARCH_SW/dacs/config/dacs.env
# fi
# End of comment by Andrew Lin
# Source global definitions
if [ -f /etc/bashrc ]; then
. /etc/bashrc
fi
That did it, I am now able to log onto the Gnome dekstop via the server console or via remote VNC. It seems that the Reuters software conflicts with Gnome’s environment. Since the .baskrc script is only
executed when the root ID logs on, it meant that commenting these lines out in the .baskrc file will have no impact on the application being served by the linux server. It only means that certain apps and
tools may not run when logged in as the root admin.