[R4.2] debian-11-minimal templates gui agent crash

Testing Team 4.2 Testing
1

If I upgrade the following packages in my debian-11-minimal template, the qubes-gui-agent systemd service will fail to start on next boot.

qubes-gui-agent 4.2.2-1+deb11u1 from 4.1.28-1+deb11u1
xserver-xorg-input-qubes 4.2.2-1+deb11u1 from 4.1.28-1+deb11u1
xserver-xorg-qubes-common 4.2.2-1+deb11u1 from 4.1.28-1+deb11u1
xserver-xorg-video-dummyqbs 4.2.2-1+deb11u1 from 4.1.28-1+deb11u1

Template: debian-11-minimal installed through qvm-template. No testing repo enabled.
Dom0: Testing repo enabled.

Logs are a bit hard to retrieve since there won’t be any gui, but I’ll try my best.

Systemctl status:

â—Ź qubes-gui-agent.service - Qubes GUI Agent
     Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/qubes-gui-agent.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Mon 2023-05-08 06:51:54 UTC; 19s ago
    Process: 461 ExecStartPre=/bin/sh -c /usr/lib/qubes/qubes-gui-agent-pre.sh (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
    Process: 472 ExecStart=/usr/bin/qubes-gui $GUI_OPTS (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
   Main PID: 472 (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
        CPU: 136ms

May 08 06:51:52 debian-11-minimal systemd[1]: Started Qubes GUI Agent.
May 08 06:51:52 debian-11-minimal qubes-gui[472]: Waiting on /var/run/xf86-qubes-socket socket...
May 08 06:51:52 debian-11-minimal qubes-gui-runuser[489]: pam_unix(qubes-gui-agent:session): session opened for user user(uid=1000) by (uid=0)
May 08 06:51:53 debian-11-minimal qubes-gui[472]: Ok, somebody connected.
May 08 06:51:53 debian-11-minimal dbus-daemon[553]: [session uid=1000 pid=551] Activating service name='org.freedesktop.systemd1' requested by ':1.1' (uid=1000 pid=567 comm="systemctl --user show-environment ")
May 08 06:51:53 debian-11-minimal systemd[1]: qubes-gui-agent.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
May 08 06:51:53 debian-11-minimal dbus-daemon[553]: [session uid=1000 pid=551] Activated service 'org.freedesktop.systemd1' failed: Process org.freedesktop.systemd1 exited with status 1
May 08 06:51:53 debian-11-minimal qubes-gui[472]: X connection to :0 broken (explicit kill or server shutdown).
May 08 06:51:54 debian-11-minimal qubes-gui-runuser[489]: pam_unix(qubes-gui-agent:session): session closed for user user
May 08 06:51:54 debian-11-minimal systemd[1]: qubes-gui-agent.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
2

Fedora, whonix and debian-11-full templates are immune to this problem. I guess it’s simply lacking dependencies.

3

Set a long qrexec_timeout, and see if you can use qvm-console-dispvm

1 Like
4

Thanks, and I find it convenient to use that disp console to print the logs into a file, then use qvm-copy to transfer the file out. Much better than copying from that small xterm console.

5

Update:
sudo apt install libpam-systemd fixed this for me. Frankly speaking, this package should be made a dependency of qubes-gui-agent.

6

It’s installed in all templates bar debian-minimal and there is ongoing
discussion about including it there.
Dependency would fit well.

I never presume to speak for the Qubes team. When I comment in the Forum or in the mailing lists I speak for myself.
2 Likes