[LightDM] Autologin (lightdm) questions

[Robert Ancell]

Hi Robert.

I responded to you on June 29th:
http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/lightdm/2014-June/000628.html

To answer your further questions:
- While many systems are likely only set up with one user set to autologin
it is not uncommon to have multiple user accounts with and without
autologin. I do expect this use case to work fine.
- Unity Greeter (the default greeter used in Ubuntu) does not give visual
indication of timed logins (https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1121660)
- The version of LightDM in 14.04 does not support automatic login after a
session ends (https://launchpad.net/bugs/1302491)
- Yes, you can use alternative display managers in Ubuntu. For example, GDM.
- If you think you've found a bug, attach the logs as requested in the
first reply and file a bug against LightDM (
https://bugs.launchpad.net/lightdm/+filebug)

--Robert


On 8 July 2014 12:47, Robert Heller <heller at deepsoft.com> wrote:

> OK, this question has sat, unanswered for some time now, both on the
> ubuntu-users list, the lightdm list, on askubuntu forum, and on the
> unix.stackexchange forum.  I guess *no one* has done anything like this.
>  Or
> is there someplace else I should post this question to?  Or is there some
> other problem?  I *think* I have stated the problem completely and
> carefully
> -- no one has asked questions about my question, so I *assume* it is
> understood, but *please* let me know if there is anything unclear.
>
> I have another question: How many Ubuntu users have more than one user
> account
> set up on their Ubuntu machines? Or are Ubuntu users like MS-Windows and
> MacOSX users: on any given machine there is only ever one and only one
> 'user'?
> A machine with just one user would never have any reason to logout and then
> login to another user and then logout and login to the original user,
> either
> manually or automatically.
>
> Am I the *only* one in the entire universe that has set up Ubuntu
> machine(s)
> with multiple users?  *And* want to use the autologin feature?
>
> Or have I hit a bug or misfeature in lightdm that *no one* else has
> stumbled
> across? Does it make sense to file a bug report? With lightdm? Or with
> Ubuntu?
> Or both? Or is there something I am totally missing here? When I set
> things up
> way back when with CentOS 5, using the GDM Greeter, things worked great.
> The
> old machines would come up and after thirty seconds would autologin to
> their
> proper guest accounts. If one logged out of the guest account, the GDM
> Greeter
> would come backup up with 30 second timeout and log back into the guest
> account, unless you logged into another account and when you logged out of
> the
> other account, the GDM Greeter would do its 30 second timeout thing. (And
> it
> displayed the remaining seconds left until it autologined. lightdm does not
> seem to do that. It does (most of the time) auto login the *first time*,
> but
> doesn't after a logout. And there seem to be cases where it does not
> autologin
> after a reboot (generally when the user does not logout before shutting
> down
> the machine).
>
> Is there an alternitive to lightdm for Ubuntu 14.04? Is it possible or
> sensible to *replace* lightdm with a different display manager or a
> different
> greeter? *I* am feeling that lightdm's greeter is just plain broken, at
> least
> for my situation -- it might be fine for a single user machine or a multi
> user
> machine without using the autologin feature, but it appears broken in my
> context.
>
>
> At Sat, 28 Jun 2014 09:12:06 -0400 Robert Heller <heller at deepsoft.com>
> wrote:
>
> >
> > I have set up a batch of workstations at a library using DRBL. These
> > workstations are running Ubuntu 14.04. I want these workstations to
> autologin
> > to a specific user (a different one for each workstation, since the
> /home file
> > system is NFS mounted). I have a custom copy of
> /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf for
> > each workstation and I have set autologin-user-timeout=30 and
> > autologin-user=workstationuser (different for each workstation). This
> mostly
> > works, but there are some 'weirdnesses' I would like to resolve.
> >
> >     1) Doing a Shutdown from the gear menu and then restarting the
> machine does
> >     not always log the user in. Sometimes it behaves like the user
> 'locked'
> >     the screen and it is expecting to unlock a running session. I want a
> >     shutdown to imply a full logout (it is too much to ask the library
> staff
> >     people to logout and then shutdown). Always. These are guest
> accounts, so
> >     there is never a session to save (screen locking is also disabled).
> >
> >     2) Doing a logout from the gear menu brings up the list of all
> possible
> >     users. This is OK (sometimes someone wants or need to login as a
> >     'real' user). But if the login screen is left alone and/or after the
> >     'real' user logs out, it does not automagically re-login to the
> >     autologin-user. What do I need to do to fix this?
> >
> > I am not very experienced with Ubuntu -- I am an old hand with CentOS and
> > RedHat.
> >
> > (I asked this question on the AskUbuntu forum over 9 days ago, but got no
> > responses.)
> >
> >
>
> --
> Robert Heller             -- 978-544-6933
> Deepwoods Software        -- Custom Software Services
> http://www.deepsoft.com/  -- Linux Administration Services
> heller at deepsoft.com       -- Webhosting Services
>
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