arla-0.35.4 prevents login on Mac OS X

[Sandor W. Sklar]

Hello,

I just ran into a problem that seems to be directly related to the 
Arla-0.35.4 package.  It seems that if the 
/System/Library/StartupItems/Arla directory and contents is in place, 
no user can log into the system.  All user accounts and passwords 
entered give the "shaky loginwindow", or the incorrect username or 
password error on the console.

It doesn't seem to matter whether Arla is actually started at boot 
time; I ran into this problem while the file 
"/usr/arla/etc/startatboot" contained the word "yes" and also when 
that file did not exist.  The only way around the problem was to boot 
in single-user mode and move the "Arla" directory out of the 
/System/Library/StartupItems hierarchy.

I have not done any extensive analysis on exactly what in that 
startup script or directory is causing the problem, yet, but I wanted 
to let you know and see if anyone else is experiencing this.

Note that I installed this package on top of the previously released 
binary version; don't know if that has anything to do with it.

Unless someone posts a "smoking gun", I'll try to do some more 
analysis and figure out whats going on.

(I did notice that the Arla startup script doesn't print any messages 
about its activity, via the "ConsoleMessage" subroutine, or any other 
method.)

Thanks, --Sandy
-- 
sandor w. sklar
unix systems administrator
stanford university itss-css