[Bug 1778817] [NEW] release upgrade from xenial to bionic desktop: screen locks itself, password to unlock fails

[Steve Langasek]

Public bug reported:

During a release upgrade, the screen should not be locked because the
upgrade of underlying libraries may leave the system in an inconsistent
state where the process locking the screen may not be able to unlock it
again.

There is code in the ubuntu-release-upgrader to handle this
(DistUpgrade/DistUpgradeQuirks.py:DistUpgradeQuirks._inhibitIdle).

I have just started a release upgrade of an Ubuntu desktop from xenial
to bionic with update-manager -d.  After leaving it unattended for a
while, I came back to find the screen was locked.

/var/log/auth.log includes messages such as:

Jun 26 16:00:45 epona compiz: PAM unable to dlopen(pam_unix.so):
/lib/security/pam_unix.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file
or directory

This indicates a problem dlopen()ing the PAM modules (actual path:
/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/security/pam_unix.so) because some ABI has changed
in the system libraries, and the copy loaded into the running compiz
process does not have the symbols required in order to run this module.

This is the exact reason the screensaver is supposed to be inhibited on
upgrade.

This is also why every sensible screensaver spawns a fresh helper
process to handle the authentication through PAM.  compiz (unity),
apparently, does not.

I do not yet know what symbols have changed to cause this failure.  I'm
still investigating that.

** Affects: ubuntu-release-upgrader (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Critical
         Status: Triaged

** Changed in: ubuntu-release-upgrader (Ubuntu)
   Importance: Undecided => Critical

** Changed in: ubuntu-release-upgrader (Ubuntu)
       Status: New => Triaged

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1778817

Title:
  release upgrade from xenial to bionic desktop: screen locks itself,
  password to unlock fails

Status in ubuntu-release-upgrader package in Ubuntu:
  Triaged

Bug description:
  During a release upgrade, the screen should not be locked because the
  upgrade of underlying libraries may leave the system in an
  inconsistent state where the process locking the screen may not be
  able to unlock it again.

  There is code in the ubuntu-release-upgrader to handle this
  (DistUpgrade/DistUpgradeQuirks.py:DistUpgradeQuirks._inhibitIdle).

  I have just started a release upgrade of an Ubuntu desktop from xenial
  to bionic with update-manager -d.  After leaving it unattended for a
  while, I came back to find the screen was locked.

  /var/log/auth.log includes messages such as:

  Jun 26 16:00:45 epona compiz: PAM unable to dlopen(pam_unix.so):
  /lib/security/pam_unix.so: cannot open shared object file: No such
  file or directory

  This indicates a problem dlopen()ing the PAM modules (actual path:
  /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/security/pam_unix.so) because some ABI has
  changed in the system libraries, and the copy loaded into the running
  compiz process does not have the symbols required in order to run this
  module.

  This is the exact reason the screensaver is supposed to be inhibited
  on upgrade.

  This is also why every sensible screensaver spawns a fresh helper
  process to handle the authentication through PAM.  compiz (unity),
  apparently, does not.

  I do not yet know what symbols have changed to cause this failure.
  I'm still investigating that.

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