Teams does not run directly, but works via bash

[greemo]

I installed ego, and I get the following output but the program is not run...

(base) user_1@laptop:~$ ego -v -v -v -v -v --user=user_2 teams

[ego::logging] Log level TRACE
[users::base] Running getpwnam_r for user "user_2"
[users::base] Loading user with uid 1001
Setting up Alter Ego for user user_2 (1001)
Runtime data dir '/run/user/1000' configured
Wayland: WAYLAND_DISPLAY not set, skipping
X11 configured to allow +si:localuser:user_2
Publishing PulseAudio cookie /home/user_1/.config/pulse/cookie to /run/user/1000/ego/pulse-cookie
PulseAudio dir '/run/user/1000/pulse' configured
Running command: machinectl shell '--uid=user_2' '-EDISPLAY=:0' '-EPULSE_SERVER=unix:/run/user/1000/pulse/native' '-EPULSE_COOKIE=/run/user/1000/ego/pulse-cookie' -- .host /bin/sh -c 'dbus-update-activation-environment --systemd DISPLAY PULSE_SERVER PULSE_COOKIE; systemctl --user start xdg-desktop-portal-gtk; exec teams'
Connected to the local host. Press ^] three times within 1s to exit session.

Connection to the local host terminated.

Any thoughts??

[intgr]

Hi! A some things to try:

• What Linux distribution and version are you using?
• Does it work if you run ego --user=user_2 bash and then run teams from there?
• Does ego --sudo mode work?
• Run sudo journalctl -f in the background and then try ego again, see if there are any log messages that might indicate a problem.

[greemo]

Thanks Marti,

Running ego --user=user_2 bash and then running teams from there worked perfectly.

Now I can log into multiple teams accounts simultaneously on Linux, thanks!

[intgr]

Great! I'm still curious though, why your original command doesn't work. It's probably something that can be improved in ego.

PS: This is the first user feedback I've received. It's good to hear that somebody finds this useful. :)

[greemo]

FYI:

ego --sudo --user=user_2 teams works, but I get the following output on the console:

X Error of failed request: BadName (named color or font does not exist)
Major opcode of failed request: 140 (RANDR)
Minor opcode of failed request: 16 (RRCreateMode)
Serial number of failed request: 34
Current serial number in output stream: 34

Running journalctl before ego --user=user_2 teams:

Mar 08 11:51:46 laptop polkitd(authority=local)[946]: Registered Authentication Agent for unix-process:200399:73989715 (system bus name :1.791 [/usr/bin/pkttyagent --notify-fd 5 --fallback], object path /org/freedesktop/PolicyKit1/AuthenticationAgent, locale en_AU.UTF-8)
Mar 08 11:51:50 laptop polkitd(authority=local)[946]: Operator of unix-session:c2 successfully authenticated as unix-user:user_1 to gain TEMPORARY authorization for action org.freedesktop.machine1.host-shell for system-bus-name::1.792 [machinectl shell --uid=user_2 -EDISPLAY=:0 -EPULSE_SERVER=unix:/run/user/1000/pulse/native -EPULSE_COOKIE=/run/user/1000/ego/pulse-cookie -- .host /bin/sh -c dbus-update-activation-environment --systemd DISPLAY PULSE_SERVER PULSE_COOKIE; systemctl --user start xdg-desktop-portal-gtk; exec teams] (owned by unix-user:user_1)
Mar 08 11:51:50 laptop systemd[1]: Started Shell for User user_2.
Mar 08 11:51:50 laptop systemd[200414]: pam_unix(login:session): session opened for user user_2 by (uid=0)
Mar 08 11:51:50 laptop systemd-logind[956]: New session 128 of user user_2.
Mar 08 11:51:50 laptop systemd[1]: Started Session 128 of user user_2.
Mar 08 11:51:50 laptop systemd[1]: [email protected]: Succeeded.
Mar 08 11:51:50 laptop systemd[1]: session-128.scope: Succeeded.
Mar 08 11:51:50 laptop systemd-logind[956]: Session 128 logged out. Waiting for processes to exit.
Mar 08 11:51:50 laptop systemd-logind[956]: Removed session 128.
Mar 08 11:51:50 laptop polkitd(authority=local)[946]: Unregistered Authentication Agent for unix-process:200399:73989715 (system bus name :1.791, object path /org/freedesktop/PolicyKit1/AuthenticationAgent, locale en_AU.UTF-8) (disconnected from bus)

Cheers

[intgr]

OK I tried it and I see the issue now. The teams command forks a background process and exits immediately. Since the command exits, the session quits and systemd tears down background processes with it.

This demonstrates the issue by keeping the session around for 5 more seconds. Teams has a chance to start up and then exits.

ego sh -c 'teams && sleep 5'

Hopefully there is a nice way to handle this situation that doesn't add much complexity, I'll have to do some research.

[intgr]

Jotting down notes about this issue...

• teams escapes the process hierarchy by double-forking, becoming an orphan process.
  • Even with a systemd user session, on my system, orphans inherit PID 1 as their parent, so we lose track of them.
  • I was under the impression that systemd user session uses PR_SET_CHILD_SUBREAPER so that it would become the parent process. Dunno why this isn't working. (https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/177361)
• The teams processes still belong to the current session by process sesssion ID (e.g. ps o pid,ppid,pgid,sid,comm), so it's possible to track them that way. (https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/18178)
• Cannot use wait on these processes because they aren't subprocesses of the shell ("bash: wait: pid 295517 is not a child of this shell")
• They can also be tracked by the login session in the cgroups tree (systemd-cgls -u user-$UID.slice)

  │ └─user-979.slice 
  │   ├─session-382.scope 
  │   │ ├─298304 /usr/share/teams/teams --disable-namespace-sandbox --disable-setuid-sandbox
  

  • Maybe some properties can be tweaked on the scope level systemctl show session-$XDG_SESSION_ID.scope
    • Change kill signal to SIGHUP instead of SIGKILL? https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/systemd.kill.html
      • Seems like these settings can't be changed (systemctl set-property session-406.scope KillMode=none) and it's a bad idea anyway ("allows processes to escape the service manager's lifecycle and resource management").
  • loginctl enable-linger ego can be used to keep systemd around before and after the scope. But teams (and I guess everything in the session scope) still gets killed when I close the shell. :(
• loginctl also allows inspecting session information (loginctl show-session -a $XDG_SESSION_ID loginctl session-status $XDG_SESSION_ID).
  • I guess when the session main process ("leader") dies, systemd kills everything in the session.
    • So maybe instead of launching teams as the main session process, I can run something that keeps track and waits for children? Although this is more complexity than I was hoping :(

[lucasvienna]

Stumbled upon ego while trying to run Teams on a different user session. Had the exact same issue, where running ego teams would instantly exit without any discernible effect. I'm using Elementary OS 5.1.7 Hera (Ubuntu 18.04).

The bash -> teams workflow does work for me as well.

EDIT: if I can provide logs or any sort of debug data to help feel free to ask, I'd be happy to!