Issue with Gnome remote desktop package?

Bluefin
1

Happy to raise an issue for this if I can confirm: has anyone else had Gnome’s remote desktop break in Fedora 42 with a core dump? I get:

# systemctl status gnome-remote-desktop.service
× gnome-remote-desktop.service - GNOME Remote Desktop
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/gnome-remote-desktop.service; enabled; preset: disabled)
    Drop-In: /usr/lib/systemd/system/service.d
             └─10-timeout-abort.conf
     Active: failed (Result: core-dump) since Fri 2025-06-13 21:27:39 BST; 9min ago
 Invocation: 9d6ecac1edc24dfeaa20d641ff5545bc
    Process: 982595 ExecStart=/usr/libexec/gnome-remote-desktop-daemon --system (code=dumped, signal=ABRT)
   Main PID: 982595 (code=dumped, signal=ABRT)

Jun 13 21:27:39 host systemd[1]: gnome-remote-desktop.service: Main process exited, code=dumped, status=6/ABRT
Jun 13 21:27:39 host systemd[1]: gnome-remote-desktop.service: Failed with result 'core-dump'.
Jun 13 21:27:39 host systemd[1]: Failed to start gnome-remote-desktop.service - GNOME Remote Desktop.
...

Looking at the log:

Jun 13 21:28:28 host audit[1]: SERVICE_START pid=1 uid=0 auid=4294967295 ses=4294967295 subj=system_u:system_r:init_t:s0 msg='unit=systemd-coredump@27-982898-0 comm="systemd" exe="/usr/lib/systemd/systemd" hostname=? addr=? terminal=? res=success'
Jun 13 21:28:29 host systemd-coredump[982899]: [🡕] Process 982895 (gnome-remote-de) of user 974 dumped core.
                                                                
                                                                Module /usr/libexec/gnome-remote-desktop-configuration-daemon from rpm gnome-remote-desktop-48.1-1.fc42.x86_64
...

I have found this thread on Fedora forums which claims it is because the configuration directory should be updated to have user gnome-remote-desktop as owner:

I had to run the following command, and then the daemon could start successfully:
chown -R gnome-remote-desktop: /var/lib/gnome-remote-desktop

Well, indeed on my Bluefin:

root@host ~# ls -al /etc/systemd/system/graphical.target.wants/gnome-remote-desktop.service
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 52 Jun  8 20:49 /etc/systemd/system/graphical.target.wants/gnome-remote-desktop.service -> /usr/lib/systemd/system/gnome-remote-desktop.service

root@host ~# grep User /etc/systemd/system/graphical.target.wants/gnome-remote-desktop.service
User=gnome-remote-desktop

root@host ~# ls -ald /var/lib/gnome-remote-desktop
drwx------. 1 saslauth gnome-remote-desktop 24 May  6  2024 /var/lib/gnome-remote-desktop/

So it seems the service is configured to run as user gnome-remote-service but this user does not seem to exist in /etc/passwd so I cannot use the suggested fix from the Fedora forums.

Anyone else getting this? How would you go about working around this? Is it possible Bluefin needs to add a new user to /etc/passwd to accommodate the application?

2

As a workaround, I added an override with:

❯ sudo systemctl edit gnome-remote-desktop.service 
Successfully installed edited file '/etc/systemd/system/gnome-remote-desktop.service.d/override.conf'.

❯ cat /etc/systemd/system/gnome-remote-desktop.service.d/override.conf 
User=saslauth

This is the actual owner of the data on disk, and now I am able to remote login again…

I’ve raised Possible packaging issue with Gnome affecting the remote desktop · Issue #2657 · ublue-os/bluefin · GitHub

Since the Fedora forums user was able to chown the directory, I expect that Fedora 42 actually has the gnome-remote-desktop user so this is likely a bluefin-side issue…