[Pkg-systemd-maintainers] Bug#726466: Bug#726466: libsystemd-login0: while logging in to tty6 got Failed to issue method call.

[Michael Stapelberg]

Hi Ernest,

Ernest Adrogué <nfdisco at gmail.com> writes:
> I can confirm this.  The message appears on tty6 after a successful login on
> a tty or lightdm.  This is on a recently installed (3 weeks ago) Debian
> "testing" system.  I think this may have been going on since the first day,
> although I haven't noticed until now. 
Are you 100% sure that it appears _after a successful login_? Because I
have been experimenting some more and it turns out that when you use the
NAutoVTs (and possibly ReserveVT) settings in /etc/systemd/logind.conf
(they are not enabled by default in systemd 204-5) and then switch to a
VT which does not have a getty running (e.g. vt8), I get that message.

This is because logind tries to activate autovt at tty8.service unit
unconditionally, i.e. without checking whether systemd is pid1 or
not. It should be a simple fix (and the error message is uncritical),
but it does sound a bit different from what you people have been
reporting, since you never complained about no getty showing up on a VT.

In strace it looks like this:

9020  epoll_wait(4, {{EPOLLERR, {u32=3, u64=3}}}, 1, 4294967295) = 1
9020  lseek(5, 0, SEEK_SET)             = 0
9020  read(5, "tty8\n", 63)             = 5
9020  timerfd_create(CLOCK_MONOTONIC, 0x80800 /* TFD_??? */) = 14
9020  timerfd_settime(14, 0, {it_interval={25, 0}, it_value={25, 0}},
NULL) = 0
9020  epoll_ctl(10, EPOLL_CTL_ADD, 14, {EPOLLIN, {u32=14206400,
u64=14206400}}) = 0
9020  sendmsg(9, {msg_name(0)=NULL,
msg_iov(2)=[{"l\1\0\1!\0\0\0\25\0\0\0\240\0\0\0\1\1o\0\31\0\0\0/org/freedesktop/systemd1\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\6\1s\0\30\0\0\0org.freedesktop.systemd1\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\2\1s\0
\0\0\0org.freedesktop.systemd1.Manager\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\3\1s\0\t\0\0\0StartUnit\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\10\1g\0\2ss\0",
176}, {"\23\0\0\0autovt at tty8.service\0\4\0\0\0fail\0", 33}],
msg_controllen=0, msg_flags=0}, MSG_NOSIGNAL) = 209
9020  poll([{fd=9, events=POLLIN}], 1, 25000) = 1 ([{fd=9,
revents=POLLIN}])
9020  recvmsg(9, {msg_name(0)=NULL,
msg_iov(1)=[{"l\3\1\0014\0\0\0\10\0\0\0u\0\0\0\6\1s\0\5\0\0\0:1.32\0\0\0\4\1s\0,\0\0\0org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.Spawn.ChildExited…

Could you please run the following command?

sudo strace -f -s 2048 -o /tmp/strace.log -p $(pidof systemd-logind)

Then reproduce the issue, cancel the strace, attach /tmp/strace.log to
this bug.

-- 
Best regards,
Michael