[arch-general] lxc-console to LXC container not working

[Viktor Trojanovic]

Hi list,

I ran pacman -Syu on one of my LXC containers running Arch and 
subsequently could not log on to it using lxc-console. The login screen 
would appear at first but the credentials entry was messed up. Every 
time I enter my credentials, I get back a login prompt, and several 
times the password entry would not even be obfuscated but show the typed 
text. At any rate, no matter how often I would try to login, it would fail.

Luckily, lxc-attach still worked so I could easily check the logs, here 
an extract:

Nov 17 15:49:51 fileserver login[90]: pam_unix(login:auth): 
authentication failure; logname=LOGIN uid=0 euid=0 tty=pts/0 ruser=
Nov 17 15:49:54 fileserver login[90]: FAILED LOGIN 1 FROM pts/0 FOR 
viktor, Authentication failure
Nov 17 15:49:57 fileserver login[90]: pam_securetty(login:auth): 
unexpected response from failed conversation function
Nov 17 15:49:57 fileserver login[90]: pam_securetty(login:auth): cannot 
determine username
Nov 17 15:49:57 fileserver login[90]: pam_nologin(login:auth): cannot 
determine username
Nov 17 15:49:57 fileserver login[90]: FAILED LOGIN SESSION FROM pts/0 
FOR (unknown), Error in service module
Nov 17 15:49:57 fileserver login[86]: pam_tally(login:auth): 
pam_get_uid; no such user
Nov 17 15:50:00 fileserver systemd[1]: container-getty at 0.service: 
Service has no hold-off time, scheduling restart.
Nov 17 15:50:00 fileserver systemd[1]: Stopped Container Getty on 
/dev/pts/0.
Nov 17 15:50:00 fileserver systemd[1]: Started Container Getty on 
/dev/pts/0.
Nov 17 15:50:00 fileserver systemd[1]: getty at lxc-tty1.service: Service 
has no hold-off time, scheduling restart.
Nov 17 15:50:00 fileserver systemd[1]: Stopped Getty on lxc/tty1.
Nov 17 15:50:00 fileserver systemd[1]: Started Getty on lxc/tty1.
Nov 17 15:50:04 fileserver agetty[109]: pts/0: input overrun

I solved my issue simply by commenting the line

auth required pam_securetty.so

in the file /etc/pam.d/login, and now I can properly log in using 
lxc-console.

Does anyone know what the exact issue is here, and if there is a better 
way to handle this than I presented?

Thanks,
Viktor