[gentoo-user] xorg-server

[gentoo-user] xorg-server

[Jorge Almeida]

I was going to update world and I just noticed a few strange details.
For example, xorg-server  has a new (?) USE variable "elogind" which
appears to be enabled by default. I suppose I can block it in
package.use, but I'm curious about what it does. In
https://packages.gentoo.org/useflags/elogind
I found
"Use elogind to get control over framebuffer when running as regular user"

Could someone explain what this entails? What happened before this USE
variable was created? What will I miss if I disable it?

Jorge Almeida

Re: [gentoo-user] xorg-server

[tastytea]

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On 2020-04-14T19:16+0100
Jorge Almeida <jjalmeida@gmail.com> wrote:

> I was going to update world and I just noticed a few strange details.
> For example, xorg-server  has a new (?) USE variable "elogind" which
> appears to be enabled by default. I suppose I can block it in
> package.use, but I'm curious about what it does. In
> https://packages.gentoo.org/useflags/elogind
> I found
> "Use elogind to get control over framebuffer when running as regular
> user"
> 
> Could someone explain what this entails? What happened before this USE
> variable was created? What will I miss if I disable it?

ConsoleKit2 is unmaintained, elogind is the replacement. If you don't
use systemd, read `eselect news read new` or
<https://www.gentoo.org/support/news-items/2020-04-14-elogind-default.html>.

> Jorge Almeida
> 

tastytea

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Get my PGP key with `gpg --locate-keys tastytea@tastytea.de` or at
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Re: [gentoo-user] xorg-server

[Jorge Almeida]

On Tue, Apr 14, 2020 at 7:29 PM tastytea <tastytea+gentoo@tastytea.de> wrote:
>
> On 2020-04-14T19:16+0100
> Jorge Almeida <jjalmeida@gmail.com> wrote:
>

> > "Use elogind to get control over framebuffer when running as regular
> > user"
> >
> > Could someone explain what this entails? What happened before this USE
> > variable was created? What will I miss if I disable it?
>
> ConsoleKit2 is unmaintained, elogind is the replacement. If you don't
> use systemd, read `eselect news read new` or
> <https://www.gentoo.org/support/news-items/2020-04-14-elogind-default.html>.
>
OK, I get it. I don't use ConsoleKit2, and I have "-consolekit" in
make.conf, so it's just a matter of adding "-elogind" to make.conf. I
understand why suddenly updating world wanted to pull PAM.
What I still would like to understand is what are the consequences of
[not] enabling this stuff regarding xorg-server. What kind of control
over the framebuffer is meant by the USE description quoted above?

Thanks

Jorge

Re: [gentoo-user] xorg-server

[Dale]

Jorge Almeida wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 14, 2020 at 7:29 PM tastytea <tastytea+gentoo@tastytea.de> wrote:
>> On 2020-04-14T19:16+0100
>> Jorge Almeida <jjalmeida@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> "Use elogind to get control over framebuffer when running as regular
>>> user"
>>>
>>> Could someone explain what this entails? What happened before this USE
>>> variable was created? What will I miss if I disable it?
>> ConsoleKit2 is unmaintained, elogind is the replacement. If you don't
>> use systemd, read `eselect news read new` or
>> <https://www.gentoo.org/support/news-items/2020-04-14-elogind-default.html>.
>>
> OK, I get it. I don't use ConsoleKit2, and I have "-consolekit" in
> make.conf, so it's just a matter of adding "-elogind" to make.conf. I
> understand why suddenly updating world wanted to pull PAM.
> What I still would like to understand is what are the consequences of
> [not] enabling this stuff regarding xorg-server. What kind of control
> over the framebuffer is meant by the USE description quoted above?
>
> Thanks
>
> Jorge
>
>


I'm not sure I can answer all your questions but I'll try to provide
some info.  Since it seems you are not using consolekit, PAM or friends,
you must do everything manually when it comes to permissions.  Whether
it is consolekit or elogind, it basically allows users to do certain
things that normally only root can do.  Example, mount USB sticks etc. 
It seems, to me at least, that it also allows graphical environments to
use elogind to manage the session when logged in as well.  I started a
thread about this a while back that should be archived somewhere. 

I'll also add this for those who use elogind already, OP, this may
interest you as well.  I did my usual Sunday upgrade last night.  When
you logout of whatever GUI you use, restart elogind before logging back
in.  I don't recall seeing elogind in the list, it was a long list, but
it seems something upgraded that needs elogind restarted to work right. 
Here is what I noticed that wasn't right.  I could not mount anything
external, USB sticks or my external backup drive.  It would give me a
error about permissions.  Logging into Konsole took minutes instead of
seconds to accept my password.  Logging into the GUI took a long time
to, much longer than usual. Any program that asks for a password, it to
took forever to start if it started at all.  Some just died off and went
to /dev/null.  As soon as I could, I logged out, went to the boot
runlevel, restarted elogind since it is in the boot runlevel and
everything went back to normal.  OP, this may give you some idea what
all elogind does or has a effect on. 

If you have consolekit, PAM, elogind and such disabled, I'm not sure
what if anything will change.  I'd think by disabling elogind, you would
be back to like you was before it *attempted* to add it.  In other
words, nothing changes.  That's my thinking. 

Dale

:-)  :-) 

Re: [gentoo-user] xorg-server

[Jorge Almeida]

On Tue, Apr 14, 2020 at 9:22 PM Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Jorge Almeida wrote:

> >>> "Use elogind to get control over framebuffer when running as regular
> >>> user"
> >>>



>
> If you have consolekit, PAM, elogind and such disabled, I'm not sure
> what if anything will change.  I'd think by disabling elogind, you would
> be back to like you was before it *attempted* to add it.  In other
> words, nothing changes.  That's my thinking.

Yes, that seems right. I just added "-elogind" to make.conf and that's
it. But I'm really curious about the framebuffer stuff. As for other
stuff (mounting USB, etc), doing it by hand it's fine.
>
Cheers

Jorge

[gentoo-user] Re: xorg-server

[Ian Zimmerman]

On 2020-04-14 21:36, Jorge Almeida wrote:

> Yes, that seems right. I just added "-elogind" to make.conf and that's
> it. But I'm really curious about the framebuffer stuff. As for other
> stuff (mounting USB, etc), doing it by hand it's fine.

One possible implication is that without one of these mystery packages,
you need the Xorg binary to be setuid root, and with them, you don't.
Just a hypothesis: I don't use either elogind or ConsoleKit, and my Xorg
is setuid root. :-(

This also links back to my last question about firefox.  It turned out
that the rare and random crashes stopped when I shifted from allowing X
to start on the first unused tty (which is the default) to starting it
on the tty where I'm already logged in.  I'm thinking this is somehow
related to my user id and permissions on the tty.  Possibly with one of
the login managers it is not an issue.

-- 
Ian

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: xorg-server

[Jorge Almeida]

On Thu, Apr 16, 2020 at 1:07 AM Ian Zimmerman <itz@very.loosely.org> wrote:
>
> On 2020-04-14 21:36, Jorge Almeida wrote:
>
> > Yes, that seems right. I just added "-elogind" to make.conf and that's
> > it. But I'm really curious about the framebuffer stuff. As for other
> > stuff (mounting USB, etc), doing it by hand it's fine.
>
> One possible implication is that without one of these mystery packages,
> you need the Xorg binary to be setuid root, and with them, you don't.
> Just a hypothesis: I don't use either elogind or ConsoleKit, and my Xorg
> is setuid root. :-(
>
> This also links back to my last question about firefox.  It turned out
> that the rare and random crashes stopped when I shifted from allowing X
> to start on the first unused tty (which is the default) to starting it
> on the tty where I'm already logged in.  I'm thinking this is somehow
> related to my user id and permissions on the tty.  Possibly with one of
> the login managers it is not an issue.

I start Xorg via xinit, on a forced VT. It works fine for me. But yes,
I do have it suid root...

Jorge