recovery from stupid error

[skaller]

On Thu, 2005-07-14 at 07:44 +0200, Ante Karamatić wrote:
> On Thu, 2005-07-14 at 15:25 +1000, skaller wrote:
> 
> > The result is catastrophic: 
> 
> Not quite. If you delete users home (or even entire /home structure),
> users will still be able to login. 

No, what I'm trying to point out is that they cannot log
in from the X-Windows login screen thing. Gnome crashes,
the session fails, and you end up back at the same login
screen.

Login is possible from a console -- if you know how
to get to a console login.

> This is question for -users, not -devel. Please, next time post there.

No it isn't, and please think before posting such a silly
comment: how would I 'post' any questions if I had
not *already* recovered?? I need my email client
to post -- and it requires a working desktop.

It is not a question. It is a bug report.
If a user is a valid user, they should be able to log
in through the X-Windows login screen. 

I couldn't. So it is a bug, possibly one that the
security people should look at.

IMHO, somehow GNOME (or whichever part of the login
system is responsible) should be able to create
the 'failsafe' session 'no matter what' an ordinary
user does.

It is possible that I deleted something more than I should
have and prevented this -- I was root when I deleted things.
In that case the session manager is excused -- obviously
arbitrary root actions can destroy the whole system.
However I don't think I destroyed anything vital,
though I'm not sure, the reason is simple: after removing
myself as a user and adding myself back again, everything
worked.

Bottom line: 'failsafe session' option of the login screen
did not work, and it should have .. IMHO.