MX Linux Forum

I'm going to call this Security because it has to do with the password. I have MX 21 installed on two devices: a laptop and in a VM on my Windows PC. Last night I opened up MX 21 in the VM in order to get some color information from the choices I'd made to make the stock Conky look nice with my chosen wallpaper. I got the 6 variables for all of the colors until the last one when, wouldn't you know it, MX 21 froze on me. I thought, "No problem, I just close it out and restart it." Nope. It was frozen to the point that I couldn't shut it down. So I had to shut down Oracle VM.

I restarted everything and fully expected to resume my task....except entering my password did not complete the start of MX 21. Instead, the password entry box disappeared (as if the rest of the boot would continue) and then re-appeared, empty, as if I'd entered nothing. This was NOT a case of entering an incorrect password because when I *do* enter one that's incorrect, I'm informed of that. This situation has the correct password apparently recognized....but then nothing else happens other than the password entry box reappears after a second or two.

Any idea what's going on here?

Login as root, then delete the .Xauthority file in /home/yourusername/

How do I log in as root if I can't get past the password entry field? When I start MX from within the VM I just click on the Start arrow and off it goes.

Let me add to that: I have the choice of selecting "Other" on that login....but, it, too is asking for a password. I don't see how to enter "root" anywhere.

That might be a frightfully newbie thing to ask but, fact is, even though MX Linux was my first exposure to Linux 2+ years ago, I really haven't used it much other than as a way to launch the software packages I use. So, in that sense, I'm still a newbie.

You marked the thread by accident then ..

Whatever.. Ctrl + Alt + F1 and login manually.. (type username hit Enter, then do the same for pw. "blindly": it won't show anything when you type it)

then
then Ctrl + Alt + F7 or reboot.

DPool wrote: Fri Jul 15, 2022 12:20 pmI have the choice of selecting "Other" on that login....but, it, too is asking for a password. I don't see how to enter "root" anywhere.

Normally that's the way how to login as root. Click "Other" then type root as the username then root pw. below.. (when you choose "other" it opens a new box under that to enter the username )

Huckleberry Finn wrote: Fri Jul 15, 2022 12:22 pm Ctrl + Alt + F1 and login manually.. (type username hit Enter, then do the same for pw. "blindly": it won't show anything when you type it)

then

Code: Select all

rm .Xauthority

then Ctrl + Alt + F7 or reboot.

OK, I did all that. Logged in as root as you instructed. Changed directory to /home/Dave/. Entered rm .Xauthority. No error message. With Ctrl + Alt + F7, no change. With complete shut down within Oracle VM and a restart of MX 21, no change. Problem still persists.

If the problem persists, why did you mark the topic solved?

disk space? a home partition that is full would often prevent a user from logging in to an X session.

Eadwine Rose wrote: Fri Jul 15, 2022 1:11 pm If the problem persists, why did you mark the topic solved?

I am not aware of doing that. Sorry for any confusion.

As I think I indicated, though I joined here years ago I haven't used this forum in almost that long a time. So I could very easily have fumble fingers in navigating a message board that is far from second nature to me.

dolphin_oracle wrote: Fri Jul 15, 2022 1:29 pm disk space? a home partition that is full would often prevent a user from logging in to an X session.

Interesting. You might be quite right. But, I think I was pretty generous in giving space to MX 21 when I installed it in Oracle VM. And, as I initially reported, I had already logged in (quite a few times, in fact, since the install) and was simply reading from the screen and noting color info from my mods to the Conky when MX 21 froze. When I tried to log back in, the OS wouldn't have been a tad larger than it was during the previous session. But I'm jus' talkin' here. Not like I know anything. Thanks for the reply.

Huckleberry Finn wrote: Fri Jul 15, 2022 12:28 pm

DPool wrote: Fri Jul 15, 2022 12:20 pmI have the choice of selecting "Other" on that login....but, it, too is asking for a password. I don't see how to enter "root" anywhere.

Normally that's the way how to login as root. Click "Other" then type root as the username then root pw. below.. (when you choose "other" it opens a new box under that to enter the username )

Just so you know, it didn't. When I chose "Other" the only field to fill that was presented to me was Password. No new box appeared.

When you logout and select Other,
you will see one box with "Enter your password" under it.
You type root in that box and hit Enter.
You will then be shown a box in which you type your root password and hit Enter.
Then you are logged in as root.
Earl

Huckleberry Finn wrote: Fri Jul 15, 2022 12:22 pm Ctrl + Alt + F1 and login manually.. (type username hit Enter, then do the same for pw. "blindly": it won't show anything when you type it)

then

Code: Select all

rm .Xauthority

then Ctrl + Alt + F7 or reboot.

Reporting back in...I just want to let you know that I've gone through these steps a second and a third time. No change.

I logged in as root. Then I cd'd to /home/Dave and even checked that .Xauthority was there (of course it was) before removing it. I made sure it was removed. I logged out and tried to log back in as Dave but the problem remained: the password was NOT flagged as incorrect and after a few seconds the login box was back. So I went ahead and logged in again as root, cd'd to /home/Dave and did ls -a only to find that .Xauthority was back.

So I went through the removal process and on the 3rd try after removing .Xauthority I didn't simply log out, instead I powered off and closed MX 21 entirely. Then I restarted the MX 21 VM and tried to log in as myself....same as before: password is NOT rejected and the login box goes away for a few seconds and returns as if nothing has happened (because nothing HAS happened).

If I was the one who somehow marked this issue as solved, I apologize for that but, again, I'm not aware of how I did that. In any case, it's not resolved and in trying repeatedly to do what you instructed, I don't seem to be making any progress.

Home partition is full. (as already mentioned by Dolphin)

Here's a similar one (though this is bare metal, not VM ).

DPool wrote: Fri Jul 15, 2022 4:30 pmIf I was the one who somehow marked this issue as solved, I apologize for that but, again, I'm not aware of how I did that. In any case, it's not resolved and in trying repeatedly to do what you instructed, I don't seem to be making any progress.

You can remove the solved mark (also mark as solved) like this :

dolphin_oracle wrote: Fri Jul 15, 2022 1:29 pm disk space? a home partition that is full would often prevent a user from logging in to an X session.

Ya know.....I think you might be onto something (now that I've logged in as root a couple of times and actually paid attention to a notification that appears in the upper-right corner saying Warning: not enough space on /boot partition)

Yes, but that's another issue, not the cause of this one.

Shortly you need to open some space either on /boot partition (to prevent future "not booting" problems) and /home for this one. Just login as root and make some cleaning for both.

For the boot partition: you can use "MX Cleanup" to remove 1-2 unneeded kernels.

Huckleberry Finn wrote: Fri Jul 15, 2022 6:52 pm Yes, but that's another issue, not the cause of this one.

Shortly you need to open some space either on /boot partition (to prevent future "not booting" problems) and /home for this one. Just login as root and make some cleaning for both.

For the boot partition: you can use "MX Cleanup" to remove 1-2 unneeded kernels.

I'll be checking into the /boot partition (stranger in a strange land) but as for /home....there are no documents in Documents, no videos in Videos, no downloads in Downloads....long story short, of all the directories in /home, the only one that contains anything is Photos and that's one pic, the one I'm now using for the desktop wallpaper.

LATER: Seems I can't use MX Cleanup when logged in as root. It advises me to log in as a user...which, of course, I'm unable to do.

On login screen either make it sure that the keyboard layout was not changed to something else by accident (the icon on top-bar) or: Press F3 (or use the icon on top bar) and use the "onboard" when typing the password.

Yes, almost all the MX Tools advise that when logged in as root. But (to MX Team) : the weird thing is that when you create a new user with adduser command and login with that you still can't use them (though the new user is in sudo group)