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8.66. gdm

Updated gdm packages that fix several bugs are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.
The GNOME Display Manager (GDM) provides the graphical login screen, shown shortly after boot up, log out, and when user-switching.

Bug Fixes

BZ#827257
Due to the bugs in the XDMCP remote desktop protocol chooser and indirect query code, deadlocks and incorrect size arguments occurred on GDM. As a consequence, the host chooser failed to properly delegate to other hosts. To fix this bug, correct-size information is now used, and the recursive deadlock has been removed. As a result, the indirect chooser now works more reliably.
BZ#992907
Previously, the logic for determining when to force the X server to run on virtual console 1 was inadequate, which caused the login screen and subsequent user sessions to switch to virtual console 7 after the initial logout. This update introduces a change in the logic to make virtual console 1 use the statically hardwired display. Now, only auxiliary displays needed for user switching run on virtual console 7 and above, and the main login screen with subsequent user sessions always runs on virtual console 1.
BZ#1004484
Prior to this update, the "Switch User" menu item depended on the GDM display manager for starting a login screen. Consequently, the "Switch User" menu item terminated unexpectedly if the user initially logged in with KDM. With this update, the broken "Switch User" menu item is hidden if the user has not logged in with GDM.
BZ#1004909
Due to a missing NULL check in the code, a benign error was logged in the slave log file when logging in via a remote XDMCP connection. The missing NULL check has been added to fix this bug, and error messages are no longer returned.
BZ#1013351
Previously, GDM failed to create xauth entries usable by remote X clients. Consequently, remote clients could not gain access to the host X server without resorting to ssh tunnels. With this update, GDM writes out xauth entries suitable for remote clients when the DisallowTCP option is set to "false" in the configuration. As a result, xauth entries usable by remote clients are now successfully generated.
BZ#1030163
When debugging was enabled and DNS misconfigured, errors in debug logging code made GDM enter an infinite loop. As a consequence, the XDMCP remote desktop protocol did not work or worked sporadically when debug mode was enabled; debug code printed NULL instead of remote server host in failure scenarios. To fix this bug, the debug code has been changed not to call itself and not to nullify or leak the host name. As a result, GDM no longer locks up and returns more comprehensible error messages.
BZ#1048769
Due to incorrect handling of the machine state in user switching code, user switching applet could terminate unexpectedly shortly after login. With this update, the machine state is handled differently, and user switching applet crashes no longer occur.
BZ#1073546
If the window manager attempted to focus a window before user interaction, benign warning messages were logged in the /var/log/gdm/:0-greeter.log file. With this update, window focusing in the early start up is avoided, and the window manager no longer returns warning messages.
Users of gdm are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which fix these bugs. GDM must be restarted for this update to take effect. Rebooting achieves this, but changing the runlevel from 5 to 3 and back to 5 also restarts GDM.