[systemd-devel] Should systemd-logind provide a DM-independent mechanism for handling guest accounts?

[Lennart Poettering]

On Mon, 10.11.14 16:41, Laércio de Sousa (laerciosousa at sme-mogidascruzes.sp.gov.br) wrote:

> Hi there!
> 
> Currently there are few alternatives for implementing guest accounts in
> Linux systems. I know only two: an AppArmor-based approach implemented in
> LightDM, and a SELinux-based approach implemented in Fedora's package
> "xguest" that works with GDM. There's no option for console guest login
> (should it be needed?).
> 
> I was thinking if systemd-logind could handle itself guest accounts in the
> future, making it available for use by any display manager (and even
> console logins, who knows?).
> 
> What do you think about it?

I figure this pays into the whole concept of dynamic users, which we
really want to have eventually, to deal with dynamic allocation of
UIDs for user namespacing in container managers, for allocating
per-seat users for gdm login screens, and then also for your usecase,
i.e. to implement guest users that go away entirely on logout.

So yeah, it's definitely something we want, and I figure it should be
added to the systemd project in some way.

Lennart

-- 
Lennart Poettering, Red Hat