RE: X works, but xterm doesn't stay open (solution/bug report)

["Lafond, Kenneth G" <kenneth dot g dot lafond at intel dot com>]

Ok, thanks.  Will do.

Ken

-----Original Message-----
From: Harold L Hunt II [mailto:huntharo at msu dot edu]
Sent: Monday, April 28, 2003 10:52 AM
To: cygwin-xfree at cygwin dot com
Subject: Re: X works, but xterm doesn't stay open (solution/bug report)


Ken,

Sounds like you have found a legitimate problem.  However, this problem 
is with Cygwin proper, not with Cygwin/XFree86.  As such, it should 
probably be discussed on the Cygwin mailing list (cygwin at cygwin dot com).

Additionally, you should do a search of the Cygiwn mailing list archives 
to see if the issue has already been discussed:

http://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/


If not, could you please resend your message to cygwin at cygwin dot com?  I 
would rather that you resend it, as opposed to me forwarding it, since 
forwarded messages between these lists tend to get ignored.


Thanks for using Cygwin/XFree86,

Harold

Lafond, Kenneth G wrote:
> There is a limitation in Cygwin in for userIDs (although it may actually
lie
> within 'id'). I've found the issue. Here was the problem:
> 
> The Cygwin installer gave me a user ID of 190965 (in /etc/passwd).  That's
> 10000 more than in my SID.  The group also got 10000 added to it, so I'm
> assuming this is a magic number indicating a domain account (which I have
-
> a LARGE domain).  Whenever I tried to log in, I'd always get the error I
> described below:
> "id: cannot find name for user ID 59893" and " I have no
name!@<mycomputer>
> $ "
> I didn't know where the 59893 was coming from.  After much messing around
I
> noticed that the number in the error tracker the userID.  I finally
decided
> to change my userID to 1 in /etc/passwd to see what number I got back from
> 'id' - and the whole thing JUST WORKED.  
> 
> I was suprised, so I did some testing to make sure it works, and then did
a
> little math:
> 
> My ID was 190956, minus the error given 59893 gives:
> 19065-59893 = 131072.
> 
> From the ntsec discussion on the web, 
> "If another user (or a Windows group, treated as a user) is not present in
> /etc/passwd, the user id of that user will have a special value of -1
(which
> would be shown by ls as 65535)." 
> I knew the point at which a positive number becomes negative (ie Cygwin
uses
> a SIGNED SHORT for the userID) it's at 65535.  Add one to 65535 because 0
is
> one of the integers.
> Well, guess what:
> 65536*2 = 131072.
> 
> That matches the number above and finds the relationship and discrepency
> between the 'id' error and my user ID.  Changing the user ID to 1 made it
> smaller than the critical wrapping number and so it works.  It works with
> any ID between 1 and 65534 (65535 is the ?????? user per the ntsec docs,
and
> 65536 starts this wrapping bug giving an error of not being able to find
> user 0).
> 
> Wrapping issues are not uncommon - rsync and pop3 had the same problem
about
> a year or two ago.
> 
> Suggestion: Extend the userID field to be a signed INT instead of a SHORT.
> That'll give 2147483648 users before we run into problems.  If the issue
is
> with 'id' then maybe someone can tell me who to talk to to fix it?
> 
> Kenneth G Lafond
> System Validation Group
> Validation Lead
> Intel Corporation
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Lafond, Kenneth G 
> Sent: Monday, April 28, 2003 10:06 AM
> To: cygwin-xfree at cygwin dot com
> Subject: RE: X works, but xterm doesn't stay open
> 
> 
> I think I found part of the bug.  Does anyone know the maximum number of
> users (ie the highest UID) Cygwin can handle before 'wrapping',
specifically
> in a domain environment?
> 
> Ken
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Lafond, Kenneth G 
> Sent: Friday, April 25, 2003 3:06 PM
> To: cygwin-xfree at cygwin dot com
> Subject: X works, but xterm doesn't stay open
> 
> 
> 
>>Hey all -
>>	I'm new to Cygwin.  I've searched the web for two days, and have
> 
> gone through the archives and FAQ without finding the answer to my issue.
> 
>>	I have the latest Cygwin 1.3.22-1, running on Windows 2000 Sp2.
> 
> I've installed all default items as well as a few others (like vim) and
the
> full XFree subcategory.  This is a fresh install.
> 
>>	The symptoms:  The bash shell when launched form the desktop icon
> 
> works fine (mostly).  It does say that "id: cannot find name for user ID
> 59893" and " I have no name!@<mycomputer> $ ".  I don't know if this is a
> problem for xterm, since I've seen rumblings of a user/SID problem in the
> lists that's supposed to be fixed by a later release (which I have the
> latest), so I *guessing* that this is not an issue. (although if you know
> how to fix it, please let me know)
> 
>>	I used the default startxwin.bat to start X, and it came up and
> 
> initialized twm and I got the outline for xterm, but when I placed the
> window it disappeared.  I started xterm again from within twm with the
same
> result.  I set the DISPLAY variable from the bash shell (launched from
> windows) and tried again with the same result.
> 
>>	So, I changed the startxwin.bat to start wmaker instead.  I got the
> 
> same result with the xterm (opens and immediately closes).  I'm able to
run
> the calculator and prefrences windows in wmaker just fine, but xterm will
> not stay open from X or from the windows bash shell (making this slightly
> different symptoms than I've seen already in the list archives).
> 
>>	There are no error messages or error files for me to analyze (that I
> 
> can find anyway).  Any idea what's going on?  I've posted the Xwinrl.log
and
> the setup.log below.
> 
>>
>>Kenneth G Lafond
>>System Validation Group