Sign in issues

[tbowser]

I am currently signed in as the root user. I have been since I installed Kali to my hard disk drive a few weeks ago. I go to create a non root user and it seems like it works fine. I then go to sign into said user, and it will accept the log in, but each time it returns me back to the log in screen. Am I doing something wrong? The commands I ran to make the profile was

root@(withheld):~# useradd (user)
root@(withheld):~# passwd (user) (I then put in the password)
root@(withheld):~# usermod -a -G sudo (user)
root@(withheld):~# chsh -s /bin/bash Bowser


I then tried to sign in, and it did as I described above. Please help. There is a growing list of programs I can't use because of my root status.

[grid]

Off the top of my head, the commands look ok.

My main question is your statement "There is a growing list of programs I can't use because of my root status." Not sure I understand...99% of what I do in Kali requires root. I've never had the need to create another user account.

[tbowser]

The main program right now is the Tor Browser. It does not even let me run the setup program as root. There are a few more little bits of programs that ask me to sign in as nonroot, but they're not as important. And anyway, the **** thing still won't let me sign in as nonroot. Please help.

[reidamaxia]

Hi together

I tried exactly the same commands as @tbowser did and get the exactly same error. Interestingly I can log in into terminal (su [USER]) but not into the GUI. Also the terminal then looks not normal (no [USER]@[HOST] shown).

For interested people, here my auth.log

Jan 19 07:33:57 kaliPortable useradd[3134]: new group: name=richi, GID=1001
Jan 19 07:33:57 kaliPortable useradd[3134]: new user: name=richi, UID=1000, GID=1001, home=/home/richi, shell=/bin/sh
Jan 19 07:34:04 kaliPortable passwd[3140]: pam_unix(passwd:chauthtok): password changed for richi
Jan 19 07:34:04 kaliPortable passwd[3140]: gkr-pam: couldn't update the login keyring password: no old password was entered
Jan 19 07:34:11 kaliPortable usermod[3141]: add 'richi' to group 'sudo'
Jan 19 07:34:11 kaliPortable usermod[3141]: add 'richi' to shadow group 'sudo'
Jan 19 07:34:28 kaliPortable su[3148]: Successful su for richi by root
Jan 19 07:34:28 kaliPortable su[3148]: + /dev/pts/0 root:richi
Jan 19 07:34:28 kaliPortable su[3148]: pam_unix(su:session): session opened for user richi by root(uid=0)
Jan 19 07:34:38 kaliPortable su[3148]: pam_unix(su:session): session closed for user richi
Jan 19 07:34:49 kaliPortable gdm-password]: pam_unix(gdm-password:auth): conversation failed
Jan 19 07:34:49 kaliPortable gdm-password]: pam_unix(gdm-password:auth): auth could not identify password for [root]
Jan 19 07:34:50 kaliPortable gdm-launch-environment]: pam_unix(gdm-launch-environment:session): session opened for user Debian-gdm by (uid=0)
Jan 19 07:34:50 kaliPortable systemd-logind[733]: New session c2 of user Debian-gdm.
Jan 19 07:34:51 kaliPortable polkitd(authority=local): Registered Authentication Agent for unix-session:c2 (system bus name :1.81 [gnome-shell --mode=gdm], object path /org/freedesktop/PolicyKit1/AuthenticationAgent, locale en_US.UTF-8)
Jan 19 07:34:51 kaliPortable realmd[3253]: Loaded settings from: /usr/lib/realmd/realmd-defaults.conf /usr/lib/realmd/realmd-distro.conf
Jan 19 07:34:51 kaliPortable realmd[3253]: holding daemon: startup
Jan 19 07:34:51 kaliPortable realmd[3253]: starting service
Jan 19 07:34:51 kaliPortable realmd[3253]: connected to bus
Jan 19 07:34:51 kaliPortable realmd[3253]: released daemon: startup
Jan 19 07:34:51 kaliPortable realmd[3253]: claimed name on bus: org.freedesktop.realmd
Jan 19 07:34:54 kaliPortable gdm-password]: pam_unix(gdm-password:session): session opened for user richi by (unknown)(uid=0)
Jan 19 07:34:54 kaliPortable systemd: pam_unix(systemd-user:session): session opened for user richi by (uid=0)
Jan 19 07:34:54 kaliPortable systemd-logind[733]: New session 4 of user richi.
Jan 19 07:34:54 kaliPortable polkitd(authority=local): Unregistered Authentication Agent for unix-session:c2 (system bus name :1.81, object path /org/freedesktop/PolicyKit1/AuthenticationAgent, locale en_US.UTF-8) (disconnected from bus)
Jan 19 07:34:55 kaliPortable systemd-logind[733]: Removed session c2.
Jan 19 07:34:58 kaliPortable gdm-password]: pam_unix(gdm-password:session): session closed for user richi
Jan 19 07:35:00 kaliPortable gdm-launch-environment]: pam_unix(gdm-launch-environment:session): session opened for user Debian-gdm by (uid=0)
Jan 19 07:35:00 kaliPortable systemd-logind[733]: New session c3 of user Debian-gdm.
Jan 19 07:35:00 kaliPortable polkitd(authority=local): Registered Authentication Agent for unix-session:c3 (system bus name :1.95 [gnome-shell --mode=gdm], object path /org/freedesktop/PolicyKit1/AuthenticationAgent, locale en_US.UTF-8)
Jan 19 07:35:06 kaliPortable gdm-password]: pam_unix(gdm-password:session): session opened for user root by (unknown)(uid=0)
Jan 19 07:35:06 kaliPortable systemd-logind[733]: New session 5 of user root.
Jan 19 07:35:07 kaliPortable polkitd(authority=local): Unregistered Authentication Agent for unix-session:c3 (system bus name :1.95, object path /org/freedesktop/PolicyKit1/AuthenticationAgent, locale en_US.UTF-8) (disconnected from bus)
Jan 19 07:35:07 kaliPortable systemd-logind[733]: Removed session c3.
Jan 19 07:35:27 kaliPortable systemd-logind[733]: Removed session c1.
Jan 19 07:35:27 kaliPortable systemd: pam_unix(systemd-user:session): session closed for user Debian-gdm

Specially look at this line:

Jan 19 07:34:04 kaliPortable passwd[3140]: gkr-pam: couldn't update the login keyring password: no old password was entered
Kali didn't even ask me to input the "old" password.. That's really strange. Also I got a success message in terminal, so why..?
Another test: Useradd and passwd without the usermod command: Login works.

Now something worked with usermod (with the password input right by creating the user):

adduser [USER]
usermod -a -G sudo [USER]
After this you can log in normally into the terminal and into the GUI too.

regards, reidamaxia

[tbowser]

Thank you for posting this. I followed your steps, but to no avail. It still would not let me log in. I entered the password in the login screen, the screen went black with my cursor still there, as if loading the GUI, and then it reset to the Username input of the login screen.

[reidamaxia]

Hi tbowser,

How about the terminal? Just by tipping su [USER]?
You'll know that the loggin worked properly if you see something like: [USER]@[HOST]:/$

Another question is, if you can log in with just a new user (without the usermod change)? In Terminal and in GUI? Like this we could delimit the problem a bit.

regards, reidamaxia

[tbowser]

By typing that in, it does work. But instead of saying the (User)@(Host)/$, I get just a $. But when I type whoami, it comes up with the correct name. But by doing this in the terminal, it still in no way allows takes away the root permissions I have.

[reidamaxia]

Hi tbowser,

You didn't write, if you tried to login just with a new user, without adding him to sudo-group ;)
Because basically you asked for a non-root-user, so why do you want to add him to the sudo-group? Makes no sense in my eyes and you don't even need root permission to run Tor.

Anyway, I think your Driver or your Gnome installation is broken. I've had the same problem once i installed fglrx-drivers (in the end got it to work, but that's another story..)
So what you could try is reinstalling gnome:
apt-get remove --reinstall gnome-core

Or you take the struggle on you and fight you through your logs. Specially search for any permission errors (in connection with gnome) or connection losses (to gnome-server) as I think, the problem might be based there.

regards, reidamaxia

[tbowser]

I tried reinstalling my gnome and it still does the same thing. I try to sign in, then black screen, then back to the login screen.