Password-less logins with KDE & SuSE 9.3

DeckerEgo

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Sep 14, 2005, 1:22:08 AM9/14/05

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Found something whilst trying to get freakin' passwordless logins to
work with kdm. In /etc/opt/kde3/share/config/kdm/kdmrc, you can have
passwordless logins set but they're ignored by default. That's because
you have two additional key sets:

[X-:0-Core]
[X-:0-Greeter]

If you delete those sections things should work fine. Once they're
deleted, kdm will revert back to using the more general [X-:*-Core]
setting group.

houghi

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Sep 14, 2005, 4:43:16 AM9/14/05

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DeckerEgo wrote:
<snip>

This passwordless login (and set so by defauklt) is the most stupid
thing they have ever came up with.
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James Knott

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Sep 14, 2005, 8:13:54 AM9/14/05

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houghi wrote:

> DeckerEgo wrote:
> <snip>
>
> This passwordless login (and set so by defauklt) is the most stupid
> thing they have ever came up with.

Depends on your needs. If you live alone and not worried about anyone else
having access, then there's no need for a password. Now I always use a
password, but that's because I have a cat, that I don't want using the
computer (he likes kitty porn) . ;-)

houghi

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Sep 14, 2005, 9:57:04 AM9/14/05

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James Knott wrote:
>> This passwordless login (and set so by defauklt) is the most stupid
>> thing they have ever came up with.
>
> Depends on your needs. If you live alone and not worried about anyone else
> having access, then there's no need for a password.

Nobody having access means no connection to any other PC, NEVER have
anybody in the same room as the machine is in, be sure that nobody EVER
has access to the PC.

> Now I always use a
> password, but that's because I have a cat, that I don't want using the
> computer (he likes kitty porn) . ;-)

I also use a password on my PC and nobody will have access to the PC if
I am not here.

The fact that entering a password one a day will mean that you will be
too lazy to enter a password when doing sudo and find a way around that,
or even log in as root, because it is more convinient.

OK, I have one flaw at home, I don't use a passworded screensaver. But
each time I look someting up in Yast, I enter the password.

DeckerEgo

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Sep 17, 2005, 11:24:39 PM9/17/05

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I think you're missing the way KDE uses passwordless logins. This
doesn't revoke password authentication on the system (i.e. providing
/etc/shadow with a null password string), it simply uses a pluggable
authentication module to allow kdm to use an alternate means of
authentication.

Case in point: consider using KDE as a kiosk. You set the user group to
a very restrictive profile (i.e. can't migrate out of /home/user), use
KIOSK to lock down desktop aspects, reset the profile after each login.
Here the most destructive thing a user can do is blow away their own
user directory... but not affect any actual system operation. Given
they could fork-bomb a process or the like, but actual filesystem or
proc system alteration would be beyond them.

houghi

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Sep 18, 2005, 6:22:20 AM9/18/05

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DeckerEgo wrote:
> I think you're missing the way KDE uses passwordless logins.

<snip>

I think you're missing the way quoting works. See my sig for more info.