Only root user can start a gui session
 

I am running Redhat AS4 on an HP DL320 server which has worked flawlessly for the past year or so. As of this morning, when I (or any non-root user) tries to log in via gnome or KDE, the system states that there is either no disk space available (not the case) or that there is a configuration error (most probably the case!)

What's odd is there have been no configuration changes to the machine for months and the root user can login fine via either KDE or gnome. Also all users can log in via ssh without a problem. If I grant root access to a user (i.e. change their ID to 0) they can log in fine. As near as I can tell, permissions look fine on the home directory and its subdirectories.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

well show us the actual errors, prove there is disk space etc...

As ext3 reserves 5% space for user root, it might be that the filesystem is full for everybody else but root. Post the result of `df -h`.

All,

The message is lengthy... to paraphrase:

"Your session lasted less than 10 seconds. If you did not deliberately log out, then you may have an installation problem or be out of disk space."

As for disk space, the output of df is:

Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol00
145G 14G 125G 10% /
/dev/sda1 99M 32M 62M 34% /boot
none 1.5G 0 1.5G 0% /dev/shm



I guess I should also throw in the fact that there are no quotas on this system.


Thanks!

Did you check .ICEauthority and .Xauthority files in your users home directories?, they must be own by the user of the home with rw permission.

The file permissons and ownerships are correct on both files. I am at this point beginning to think that a rebuild of the system is in order... I get a bit nervous when machines undergo personality changes for no apparent reason!

well you've not shown us the actul error messages in /var/log/Xorg.0.log and such like yet...