Bug#303346: gdm: Suppresses X logging with "Too much output"

[era eriksson]

Package: gdm
Version: 2.6.0.4-1
Severity: grave
Justification: Discards error output rather than logging as requested

When an X session has been running for a while, I get the message
"...Too much output, ignoring rest..." and then all logging to my
~/.xsession-errors stops.

I googled for this message, and the only relevant hit I got
<http://cvs.gnome.org/viewcvs/gdm2/daemon/slave.c?rev=1.276> suggests
that GDM is responsible for this message.

<http://cvs.gnome.org/viewcvs/gdm2/daemon/gdm.h?rev=1.176> defines
MAX_XSESSION_ERROR_BYTES to be 80*2500 -- I guess that's supposed to
be 2500 lines at full width. (My current .xsession-errors which just
got this message is actually 4422 lines, for comparison, but about
half of those are empty, because many programs seem to include a
spurious newline with each message.)

This limitation seems a bit ill-conceived. I can imagine that it might
be useful to limit the output produced by a runaway process in rapid
succession, but it should still be possible to get log messages from a
process which runs for as long as the computer is up; eventually, if
there are no crashes or power failures, it will produce enough log
messages to exceed whatever limit you come up with.

Still, as a workaround, perhaps the Debian package could make the
limit really large.

In the meantime, feel free to tag this as "upstream" and forwarding it
to the Gnome folks.

Ultimately, the limit should probably be configurable at startup time,
with an option to disable it (perhaps by setting the limit to 0 in the
configuration), and documented.

Thanks in advance for your attention to this,

/* era */


-- System Information:
Debian Release: 3.1
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (500, 'testing')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Kernel: Linux 2.4.27-1-686-smp
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C

Versions of packages gdm depends on:
ii  adduser              3.59                Add and remove users and groups
ii  debconf              1.4.30.10           Debian configuration management sy
ii  dpkg                 1.10.23             Package maintenance system for Deb
ii  gksu                 1.2.2-1             graphical frontend to su
ii  gnome-session        2.6.2-6             The GNOME 2 Session Manager
ii  gnome-terminal [x-te 2.6.1-6             The GNOME 2 terminal emulator appl
ii  libart-2.0-2         2.3.16-6            Library of functions for 2D graphi
ii  libatk1.0-0          1.8.0-4             The ATK accessibility toolkit
ii  libattr1             2.4.16-1            Extended attribute shared library
ii  libaudiofile0        0.2.6-4             Open-source version of SGI's audio
ii  libbonobo2-0         2.6.2-7             Bonobo CORBA interfaces library
ii  libbonoboui2-0       2.6.1-1             The Bonobo UI library
ii  libbz2-1.0           1.0.2-1             A high-quality block-sorting file 
ii  libc6                2.3.2.ds1-18        GNU C Library: Shared libraries an
ii  libcroco3            0.6.0-2             a generic Cascading Style Sheet (C
ii  libesd0              0.2.35-2            Enlightened Sound Daemon - Shared 
ii  libgconf2-4          2.6.4-2             GNOME configuration database syste
ii  libgcrypt11          1.2.0-4             LGPL Crypto library - runtime libr
ii  libglade2-0          1:2.4.0-1           Library to load .glade files at ru
ii  libglib2.0-0         2.6.1-3             The GLib library of C routines
ii  libgnome-keyring0    0.2.1-3             GNOME keyring services library
ii  libgnome2-0          2.6.1.2-2           The GNOME 2 library - runtime file
ii  libgnomecanvas2-0    2.6.1.1-2           A powerful object-oriented display
ii  libgnomeui-0         2.6.1.1cvs-1        The GNOME 2 libraries (User Interf
ii  libgnomevfs2-0       2.6.2-2             The GNOME virtual file-system libr
ii  libgnutls11          1.0.16-9            GNU TLS library - runtime library
ii  libgpg-error0        1.0-1               library for common error values an
ii  libgsf-1             1.10.1-1            Structured File Library - runtime 
ii  libgtk2.0-0          2.4.13-1            The GTK+ graphical user interface 
ii  libice6              4.3.0.dfsg.1-8      Inter-Client Exchange library
ii  libjpeg62            6b-9                The Independent JPEG Group's JPEG 
ii  liborbit2            1:2.10.2-1.1        libraries for ORBit2 - a CORBA ORB
ii  libpam-modules       0.76-22             Pluggable Authentication Modules f
ii  libpam-runtime       0.76-22             Runtime support for the PAM librar
ii  libpam0g             0.76-22             Pluggable Authentication Modules l
ii  libpango1.0-0        1.8.0-3             Layout and rendering of internatio
ii  libpopt0             1.7-5               lib for parsing cmdline parameters
ii  librsvg2-2           2.8.1-1             SAX-based renderer library for SVG
ii  libselinux1          1.16-2              SELinux shared libraries
ii  libsm6               4.3.0.dfsg.1-8      X Window System Session Management
ii  libtasn1-2           0.2.10-3            Manage ASN.1 structures (runtime)
ii  libwrap0             7.6.dbs-6           Wietse Venema's TCP wrappers libra
ii  libx11-6             4.3.0.dfsg.1-8      X Window System protocol client li
ii  libxext6             4.3.0.dfsg.1-8      X Window System miscellaneous exte
ii  libxml2              2.6.11-5            GNOME XML library
ii  metacity [x-window-m 1:2.8.1-4           A lightweight GTK2 based Window Ma
ii  sawfish [x-window-ma 1:1.3+cvs20040617-7 A window manager for X11
ii  twm [x-window-manage 4.3.0.dfsg.1-8      Tab window manager
ii  xbase-clients        4.3.0.dfsg.1-8      miscellaneous X clients
ii  xfce [x-window-manag 3.8.18-2            The Cholesterol Free Desktop Envir
ii  xlibs                4.3.0.dfsg.1-8      X Window System client libraries m
ii  xterm [x-terminal-em 4.3.0.dfsg.1-8      X terminal emulator
ii  zlib1g               1:1.2.2-1           compression library - runtime

-- debconf information:
  gdm/daemon_name: /usr/bin/gdm
* shared/default-x-display-manager: gdm