Subject: Re: [X2Go-User] Session resume fails with AFS home directories

From: Sebastian Flothow <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Sep 2013 17:21:17 +0200

Hi,

Am 18.09.2013 23:24, schrieb Mike Gabriel:
> Does a session simply not resume (with an x2goagent still being present
> for this session)? Or does the x2goagent crash somewhere on the run
> (i.e. when the session is suspended and the AFS home freezes some time
> later)?

I did a quick test (note that I removed retain_after_close from the PAM 
config again, so that I can create broken sessions quickly without 
waiting for AFS token expiry). Right after starting a new session, 
things look like this:

giplin101:~# x2golistsessions_root
26521|flothow-50-1380548308_stDXFCE_dp32|50|giplin101|R|2013-09-30T15:38:28|da9be4183a9c7d711f325742963c691e|10.0.0.105|30001|30002|2013-09-30T15:38:31|flothow|112|30003|
giplin101:~# ps 26521
   PID TTY      STAT   TIME COMMAND
26521 ?        S      0:00 /usr/lib/nx/../x2go/bin/x2goagent -extension 
XFIXES -extension GLX -nolisten tcp -D -auth /afs/gip.l

Then, after suspending the session:

giplin101:~# x2golistsessions_root
26521|flothow-50-1380548308_stDXFCE_dp32|50|giplin101|S|2013-09-30T15:38:28|da9be4183a9c7d711f325742963c691e|10.0.0.105|30001|30002|2013-09-30T15:41:32|flothow|186|30003|
giplin101:~# ps 26521
   PID TTY      STAT   TIME COMMAND
26521 ?        S      0:00 /usr/lib/nx/../x2go/bin/x2goagent -extension 
XFIXES -extension GLX -nolisten tcp -D -auth /afs/gip.l

After attempting to resume it:

giplin101:~# x2golistsessions_root
26521|flothow-50-1380548308_stDXFCE_dp32|50|giplin101|R|2013-09-30T15:38:28|da9be4183a9c7d711f325742963c691e|10.0.0.105|30001|30002|2013-09-30T15:43:20|flothow|315|30003|
giplin101:~# ps 26521
   PID TTY      STAT   TIME COMMAND
26521 ?        S      0:00 /usr/lib/nx/../x2go/bin/x2goagent -extension 
XFIXES -extension GLX -nolisten tcp -D -auth /afs/gip.l

It is still in this state now, more than half an hour later.

> If you look at
> the script /usr/bin/x2goresume-session, can you spot anything that might
> fail on AFS?

I already looked at this script a few weeks ago and added a bunch of 
debug statements which log various things to /var/log/x2godebug. When 
the script executes, there is a valid AFS token, $SESSION_DIR and 
${SESSION_DIR}/options are readable, and the script completes successfully.

However, I think that this is not meaningful. What happens is presumably 
this:

When first logging in (before an X2Go session exists), a new SSH session 
is created, which I'll refer to as the first SSH session. This session 
obtains a Kerberos ticket and an AFS token through PAM, and then spawns 
an X2Go sessions which inherits these. The Kerberos ticket is stored in 
a file pointed to by $KRB5CCNAME, while the AFS token is tied to the PAG 
(Process Authentication Group).

When suspending the X2Go session, this first SSH session is terminated. 
Depending on the PAM configuration, the ticket and token are either 
removed immediately, or expire some time later.

Now, when attempting to resume the X2Go session, a new, second SSH 
session is created. This session again obtains a ticket and a token, and 
it seems to be this session in which x2goresume-session is executed; 
however, this ticket/token is in a different file/PAG (resp.) than those 
from the first session, so the X2Go session can't use them.

After figuring this out, I remembered that pam_afs_session recognizes 
the parameter nopag, which inhibits PAG creation. Absent a PAG, AFS 
tokens are tied to user IDs instead, and indeed, when this option is 
set, sessions can be resumed even after their initial token expired - 
without PAGs, the new token from the second session propagates to the 
first session, since the user ID is identical. After resuming, the X2Go 
session still doesn't have a valid Kerberos ticket (because there are 
still two different ticket files), but it does have an AFS token, which 
is all that matters for filesystem access. Obtaining a new Kerberos 
ticket can then be done manually if necessary.

However, I'm a bit wary of using nopag in a production environment, 
because the man page also warns: "Be careful when using this option, 
since it means that the user will inherit a PAG from the process 
managing the login.  If sshd, for instance, is started in a PAG, every 
user who logs in via ssh will be put in the same PAG and will share 
tokens if this option is used."

To fix this so that it works without nopag, we'd need to move an AFS 
token from one PAG to another. I'm not aware of any way to do this 
directly, but it might be possible to copy the Kerberos ticket from the 
new ticket file to the old one, and then call aklog within the old 
session before attempting any file system access.

- Sebastian