Impossible to log in after crash while installing Surfer

[Pipicito]

I have Fedora 15 installed in my PC and I'm experimenting troubles while installing Surfer, a software for the visualization of algebraic surfaces.

The situation went like this:

1. Downloaded the .deb package from the Surfer site.
2. Downloaded alien and run it to conver the .deb package to an .rpm one.
3. Tried to install it via rpm and got an error with dependencies: libtiff.so.4 missing.
4. I had a look in /usr/lib and found libtiff.so.3.9.5. Reading some forums I found that a symbolic link

   # ln -s /usr/lib/libtiff.so.3.9.5 /usr/lib/libtiff.so.4

   may work, but it didn't. So, I duplicated the libtiff.so.3.9.5 file and put the copy in /usr/lib under the name libtiff.so.4.
5. I run rpm like this

   # rpm -ivv --nodeps surfer.rpm

Up to this moment everything was OK but after that rpm the situation got worse: the terminal crashed and the tasks bar(sorry if this is not its name) disappeared. I reboot the system and when it asked me to log in I could't do it. I mean, when I entered the user and the password it rejected the login as if I were trying an invalid user-password pair.
I tried rebooting and retrying login several times but I had the same problem over and over. As a consequence my system is now useless. I'm really confused because I have no idea of what's going on and I am new in Fedora and Linux world, so I don't know how to proceed.

Now, how do I recover my system? And, supposing that I can recover it, does anyone knows how should I overcome that trouble with libtiff.so.4?

I've made my best effort to adapt my post to the rules. If I falied, please tell me which mistakes did I make and I will correct them.

Thanks in advance and please forgive my English, I am not a native speaker.

---------- Post added 27th June 2012 at 07:58 AM ---------- Previous post was 26th June 2012 at 09:00 PM ----------

I have tried a couple of things but nothing seems to work. I have a user lucas in my system. When I try to log in via the CLI, I can do it as root but if I try to do it as lucas I just can't:

--/home/lucas: change directory failed: Permission denied

I'm a newbie so, what does this means? I think that this is saying the problem is not with passwords since I can log in as root with the password I used previously.

The problem is that when I try to log in graphic mode, I enter username and password and it takes me back to the log in screen. So, have I a problem with the graphic mode? If that is the case, how can I repair o reinstall it? In this direction I have to say that I can't get connected to Internet via the CLI so I can't use yum and stuff like that.

I am using Fedora 15 with LXDE.

[george_toolan]

You can find LibTIFF here and you should remove the fake copy which you created.

If there was a problem with the password then root would be able to set a new one

passwd lucas

Please check the permissions of your home directory, your selinux configuration and /var/log/messages for errors.

ls -l /home
ls -l /home/lucas

setenforce Permissive

[Pipicito]

First of all, thanks for the link to LibTIFF and for helping me with this.

I have removed the fake libtiff.so.4 file from the CLI.

Logged as root, I've tried setting a new password for the user lucas but the problem persists.

The permissions:

ls -l /home
total 20
drwx------.  2 root root 16384 Feb 25 12:29 lost+found
drwx------. 38 lucas lucas  4096 Jun 26 16:12 lucas

ls -l /home/lucas
total 4921
drwxr-xr-x.  2 lucas lucas    4096 Feb 25 12:42 Descargas
drwxr-xr-x.  2 lucas lucas    4096 Feb 25 12:42 Documentos
drwxr-xr-x. 24 lucas lucas    4096 Jun 26 16:46 Escritorio
drwxr-xr-x.  2 lucas lucas    4096 Feb 25 12:42 Imágenes
drwxr-xr-x.  2 lucas lucas    4096 Feb 25 12:42 Música
drwxr-xr-x.  2 lucas lucas    4096 Feb 25 12:42 Plantillas
drwxr-xr-x.  2 lucas lucas    4096 Feb 25 12:42 Público
drwxr-xr-x.  8 lucas lucas    4096 Jun 26 15:53 rpmbuild
drwxr-xr-x.  2 lucas lucas    4096 Feb 25 12:42 Vídeos

My /etc/selinux/config file is

# This file controls the state of SELinux on the system.
# SELINUX= can take one of these three values:
#	enforcing - SELinux security policy is enforced.
#	permissive - SELinux prints warnings instead of enforcing.
#	disabled - SELinux is fully disabled.
SELINUX=enforcing
# SELINUXTYPE= type of policy in use. Possible values are:
#	targeted - Only targeted network daemons are protected.
#	strict - Full SELinux protection.
SELINUXTYPE=targeted

The setenforce seems, to me at least, not to be working. When I try

setenforce Permissive

my /etc/selinux/config file does not change. Running a Live CD with Fedora 16 I changed the file manually to set

SELINUX=permissive

but the problem persisted. Furthermore, when I tried to set it again to Enforcing usign setenforce it remained Permissive. I don't know if this file should change when I use setenforce but, if that is the case, then there is something wrong.

The logs are confusing to me but after a while I found a pattern. When I try to log in (as lucas or as root) via the graphic mode, in the log file /var/log/messages appears

sedispatch: Connection Error (An SELinux policy prevents this sender from sending this message to this recipient (rejected message had sender "(unset)" interface "org.freedesktop.DBus" member "Hello" error name "(unset)" destination "org.freedesktop.DBus")): AVC Will be dropped

What does that entry in the log file exactly means?

[george_toolan]

Setenforce is only temporary and does not change any files.

Try to completely disable seLinux, because this is some sort of seLinux error message:

       sedispatch  is  audit  dispatcher.  It scans audit messages for SELinux
       AVC messages, formats them into a dbus message and sends it to  setrou‐
       bleshootd

But your seLinux doesn't allow it to send ;-)