CentOS/RHEL 7 - gdm getting crashed and unable to login via GUI

The Problem

User cannot login to the system via GUI On CentOS/RHEL 7.x. The gdm utility segfault with below error after which unable to login to GUI.

kernel: gdm-simple-slav[4172]: segfault at 0 ip 00007f93d911c7df sp 00007fffecadaac0 error 4 in gdm-simple-slave[7f93d910a000+4a000]
kernel: gdm-simple-slav[2645]: segfault at 0 ip 00007f9781f7d7df sp 00007fff672c6980 error 4 in gdm-simple-slave[7f9781f6b000+4a000]

The Solution

For a new installation of CentOS/RHEL 7, GUI does not come with the default installation. If you do not click on the “Software Selection” link and pick “server with GUI” then there will be no GUI after reboot, only “Base Environment” will be installed.

For new installation with GUI

While doing the installation of CentOS/RHEL 7, please click on the “Software Selection” link and pick “server with GUI”.

Install GUI after installation of OS

If the server is installed without GUI, please follow the steps below to install the required RPM packages:

1. Install the required GUI packages:

# yum groupinstall 'X Window System' 'GNOME' -y

2. After installing the packages you can boot into GUI without rebooting the server with the below command.

# systemctl isolate graphical.target

3. Modify the target as “graphical.target” to bring the system in to the GUI mode by default

# systemctl enable graphical.target --force

4. Verify the current target:

# systemctl get-default