ispconfig on a system with a desktop

[koekbr]

Can ispconfig be installed on a system with a gnome desktop, the reason i ask is after installing ispconfig and rebooting the system, my system holts at gdmgreeter and does not display the graphical loginin screen.

After searching on the net, i have found some users saying that ispconfig is for pure servers only. Is this correct, as all functions of isp config work perfectley, until you reboot the system and then you just cant login.

Just a note, i followed the How To - The perfect server Fedora 7 exactly.
ispconfig works perfectly.
Now problems with system or hardware.
Fedora 7 System
Installed with desktop and server functionality.

Can anyone help me.
If i never turn the system of i can run ispconfig and server perfectly with no problems. But as soon as i reboot i just cant log back in. (ETSA Utilities doing electrical work in the house and had to turn power of for 1 hour otherwise i would of never turmed the system of)

Please help.

[till]

ISPConfig does not interfere with gnome. You can install it on a linux desktop as well as on a server, it makes no difference for ISPConfig or gnome.

I do not think that your problem is caused by ISPConfig. But I'am not a expert for gdmgreeter to tell you what causes this software to hang.

[koekbr]

All i know is that i follow the how to perfect server fedora 7, i update via yum, and i can use the gnome desktop as usual (after boot i get the login screen),Then after the whole how to, i reboot and all is still good. So i proceed to install ispconfig (this is all that is installed) then reboot and i cant get to login screen. (installed via /root/install_ispconfig/ ./setup)

I tried ctrl + alt + f1 and used top and the PID it was stuck on was gdmgreeter so im asuming this is the error, it may not be. All i know is that everything is fine with my system until i install ispconfig (i dont install anything else) then i cannot log in. I really dont want to go back to leased licence of plesk, does anyone know what can be wrong.

[till]

Did you follow the ISPConfig installation isnstructions http://www.ispconfig.org/manual_installation.htm and entered "n" in step 7 and 8 of the SSL certificate createion process? If not, it might be that your start scripts are waiting that you enter the SSL password before they proceed.

If you encrypted your SSL certificate by not choosing "n" during setup, please create new certificates on the shell as described here:

http://www.howtoforge.com/forums/showthread.php?t=121&highlight=firefox+8182

[koekbr]

No i did not encrypt the ssl certificates. This is why i dont know what the error can be. It is really frustrating.

[till]

Please disable the startup of the ISPConfig server by running:

chkconfig --levels 235 ispconfig_server off

and then reboot your server. Are you now able to login?

[danf.1979]

I have to servers. One for production, and one for developing. My dev server is my desktop computer with gnome and debian lenny, and it has ispconfig installed (version 2.2.10).

I cannot update ispconfig though, lenny is not supported, but that is another problem. ISPConfig works fine here with gnome.

[till]

I cannot update ispconfig though, lenny is not supported

The update should work if you change the version number in /etc/debian_version to "4.0", update ISPConfig and restore the original version number after you updated ISPConfig.

[koekbr]

Please disable the startup of the ISPConfig server by running:

chkconfig --levels 235 ispconfig_server off

and then reboot your server. Are you now able to login?

I tried this but i get the error:
Service ispconfig_server does not support chkconfig:(

So i perform a interactive startup of my fedora 7 system and select NO when asked if i want the ispconfig_server to start. But i get the same problem can not get past loading gdmgreeter (just get a blue screen showing the mouse with the swirling blue lines showing it is trying to do something, i left it for 7 hours but it still did not get past it)


The usual servcies that are running or started at startup are:
microcode_ctl
readahead_early
kudzu
cpuspeed
ip6tables
iptables
isdn
network
loopback interface
eth0
auditd
service restorecond
syslog
irqbalance
mcstrans
named
rbcbind
setroubleshoot
nfslock
mdmonitor
rpcidmapd
rpcgssd
messagebus
bluetooth
httpd
netfs
pcscd
hidd
lm_sensors
autofs
qemu
hplip
cups
sshd
ntpd
mysqld
dovecot
postfix
nasd
Console kit
crond
xfs
anacron
atd
saslauthd
readahead_later
dhcdbd
libvirtd
yum-updatesd
avahi-daemon
haldaemon
NetworkManager
xend
firstboot
ispconfig_server
local
xenddomains
smartd

so i disable named, postfix, httpd, dovecot, proftpd, mysqld, ntpd and ispconfig_server. I get the same problem.:(

I try to disable ispconfig_server by it self and i get the same problem.:(

I am stumped. Do you think it would be beneficial for me to reinstall fedora 7 and try to install ispconfig via tty rather than the desktop. I know there is nothing wrong with my system as i had plesk 8.1 running fine for nearly a year. What strikes me odd is that the system works fine until you reboot. I cant seem to find the error. I have followed every guide to a tea.:confused:

Please help.
Why would ispconfig_server not support chkconfig

Thanks Till.

[till]

ISPConfig supports chkconfig, but maybe not the version that you have installed. But this does not really matter as the ISPConfig installer has a different mechanism to enable ISPConfig. This has nothing to do with your original problem.

If you want to disable ispconfig_server manually, just remove the symlinks to the ispconfig_server script in the directories /etc/rc0.d - rc6.d.

[koekbr]

This worked. After removing ispconfig_server from automatic startup i am now able to see the login screen. Although the gnome desktop is not fully functional. All the desktop icons work, but none of the taskbar or menu buttons work. I changed the greeter from gdmgreeter to gdmlogin and booted with kde and it works fine, i can start and restart and work like normal.

Why would the ispconfig system interfere with gnome so badly that even after disabling ispconfig_server it still has changed some of the settings and basically disbaled gnome. I would prefer to use gnome than kde as it is less resource hungry. But for now everything is working under kde anyway.

Thanks till

Brad

[falko]

Why would the ispconfig system interfere with gnome so badly that even after disabling ispconfig_server it still has changed some of the settings and basically disbaled gnome. I would prefer to use gnome than kde as it is less resource hungry. But for now everything is working under kde anyway.

That's the first time I hear of such a problem... :confused:

[red_marine]

i have the exact same problem described in this thread, i performed a virtually full isntall of fedora core 7, and after installing ispconfig, the computer does not boot up anymore, it shows a black screen with a cursor that appears to be "busy"

SSH putty works so i can access everything and the computer seems to be running as if nothing is wrong, however i cannot get the graphical interface working

please, i hope someone can help out soon!

[till]

I guess thats not the smae problem that the first poster had in this thread. It looks like you encrypted your SSL key accidently, you will have to create new unencrypted SSL keys as described here:

http://www.howtoforge.com/forums/showthread.php?t=121&highlight=firefox+8182

[red_marine]

it is the same problem, my cpu usage shows 70% cpu usage on gdmgreeter upon startup/freezing

also my keys are not encrypted, when ispconfig asked if i would like to encrypt i said "no" to both times

also the first time i installed i defaulted to the Yes both times, but reinstalled the fedora with no to both times and the problem is exactly the same

this issue isn't related to the encryption of the keys at all, something funny is going on with gdmgreeter, tried to update gdm as well but it didn't help

[falko]

I think this could be related to ClamAV: http://www.howtoforge.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13385&highlight=clamassassin

[zanard]

I had same problem, after restart ispconfig on fedora 7 login screen won't come up anymore. Command line working normally and process gdmgreeter takes full CPU...
Is there somebody who can describe me what is purpose of gdmgreeter process.

[zanard]

Everything started when ispconfig install script connecting to mysql server to make necessary databases and initialize ispconfig panel, then /usr/libexec/fast-user-switch-applet takes all CPU usage (100%) and after restart login screen won't come up and another process gdmgreeter process takes CPU usage (100%). Killing these processes don't give any solutions, process will be started automatically again.

I trying to switch KDE desktop instead of GNOME, maybe it helps...

[aranthorn]

Add me to the list of people with the same issue. I followed the fedora 7 perfect server to the letter, answered "no" to the encryptions and gnome doesn't load. So, I'm just hitting ctl-alt-f1 when it comes up to kill the gui and letting it run with the CLI on screen. I know you said you never heard of this before, but there appears to be a bug in 2.2.15 with gnome/fedora 7

[till]

Its a bug in GDM that causes the gdm login manager to run at 100% CPU power when ISPConfig is installed. ISPConfig is running and starting fine on these fedora 7 gnome desktops.

The only known solution is to replace the gnome desktop with a kde desktop:

yum remove gdm
yum groupinstall "KDE (K Desktop Environment)"

vi /etc/sysconfig/desktop

and add the following two lines to the file /etc/sysconfig/desktop

DESKTOP="KDE"
DISPLAYMANAGER="KDE"

But as I posted already in this thread, we roceommend to not install a desktop enviroment at all.

[mcsnakes]

i have exact same problem did you fix it?? or can someone tell me how to fix this problem i have install fedora perfect but only if i install ispconfig i cannot use the taskbar or menu buttons :( need help!

[stahlo]

I've also exactly the same problem.
But what I find out is that a Gnome session over VNC works fine, only Gnome on the local console doesn't work.

[aranthorn]

You guys/gals need to read the entire thread, the fix is posted on page 2.

[stahlo]

@aranthorn:
I've already read the thread and found the fix on P2, but I don'd want to use KDE.
And Maybe it is a hint for others to use VNC instead the local console if they want to use Gnome instead of KDE...

Regards...

[till]

@aranthorn:
I've already read the thread and found the fix on P2, but I don'd want to use KDE.
And Maybe it is a hint for others to use VNC instead the local console if they want to use Gnome instead of KDE...

Regards...

You dont have to use kde, it is sufficeint to use the KDE login manager with the gnome desktop.

[stahlo]

You dont have to use kde, it is sufficeint to use the KDE login manager with the gnome desktop.

Ok, this is great!
But the Fix on page 2 describes a solution to use complete KDE, am I right?

Exist a manual or howto to replace Gnome login manager with KDE login manager?

Thanks!

[curseddagger]

Hey all, im glad to hear that i'm not the only one with this awefull situation. I have just installed fedora 8 several times with ispconfig and each time i get the same thing, system sits and waits before the login screen... logged in via putty and vnc and the system works fine, ctrl+alt+f1 brings me to the console and that works fine too... seems that its only after i install ispconfig... i have even tried interactive startup and said 'no' to starting ispconfig server, same problem!

From what i have read i can just use the kde login manager with gnome desktop? will this cause any conflicts/problems? i would hate to not be able to use gnome!

Cheers
Curseddagger

[curseddagger]

Hey all, im glad to hear that i'm not the only one with this awefull situation. I have just installed fedora 8 several times with ispconfig and each time i get the same thing, system sits and waits before the login screen... logged in via putty and vnc and the system works fine, ctrl+alt+f1 brings me to the console and that works fine too... seems that its only after i install ispconfig... i have even tried interactive startup and said 'no' to starting ispconfig server, same problem!

From what i have read i can just use the kde login manager with gnome desktop? will this cause any conflicts/problems? i would hate to not be able to use gnome!

Cheers
Curseddagger

well i have worked out a temporary fix for this problem many of us have been having. Until the bug with the gnome login manager and ispconfig is resolved here's what you can do:

when you come to the part when your system stops loading the login manager hit ctrl+alt+F1 which will take you to a terminal, login as root.

next we need to edit/create /etc/sysconfig/desktop so use vi, emacs or whatever your favourite console based editor is and edit/create the file
example:
emacs /etc/sysconfig/desktop

you will need to edit/insert the following:

DESKTOP="GNOME"
DISPLAYMANAGER="KDE"

save your changes, exit and reboot

Basically this just uses the KDE login manager instead of the gnome one but still allows you to use GNOME as your desktop!

Hope this helps anyone that gets stuck like i did

p.s. this also works on fedora 8, i have tested it

[irstudio]

OK
so same problem here

Basically the problem lies with GDM
GDM is the default program in fedora that handles graphical logins
(this is why you can log in remotely or from a virtual terminal ... you can also boot into runlevel 3 and login and startx manually)

so what does ISPconfig do that GDM does not like??

It doesn't look like it touches PAM or GDM itself directly.
The only thing i can think of is that it may add the user "admispconfig" in a non-standard Fedora GDM incompatible way so that GDM hangs after that user is added.

I have had trouble before with GDM and LDAP network logins where stupid GDM insisted on looking up user avatars over LDAP and of course they weren't there, so GDM would just sit there. Turning that off in this case did not help IIRC

For now I switched to KDM,
but the ISPconfig script should be fixed so that it does not interfere with GDM.

[falko]

but the ISPconfig script should be fixed so that it does not interfere with GDM.
If it was a problem with ISPConfig, then there would be the same problem on all distributions. But since it happens on Fedora only, I don't think it's an ISPConfig problem.

[Dan Thurman]

I have noticed that in Fedora 8, the /usr/share/gdm/default.conf, the default theme is: GraphicalThemes=FedoraInfinity. If you comment this out and uncomment #GraphicalThemes=circles/:happygnome, the ISPConfig should work using GDM and Gnome.

But there is one thing I DO notice. Installing ISPConfig *does* affect Fedora's GDM. The question is, what exactly, is not known. I suspect it has something to do with changing the passwd, group, and other system files *somewhere* since Fedora uses getent in order for GDM to work with "FedoraInfinity" themes.

I have tried to remove all traces of ISPConfig from my Fedora system and so far I have not been able to restore GDM's original state so that FedoraInfinity theme would work again.

[till]

Dan, thank you for figuring this out (see your other thread):

http://www.howtoforge.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18463

I will close this thread now.