Log in Automatically?

Rev. Nathan · 2006-02-27 07:06:26

Where is it, or what do I do to have me log in automatically?

Cam · 2006-02-27 07:13:29

I'm pretty sure most display managers can do this, GDM, KDM etc. It's a stupid idea in 99.997% of cases though.

Rev. Nathan · 2006-02-27 18:36:02

anyone know? i wish for this feature so that people like my mother can just turn the computer on and go; and not be bothered by a login prompt.

arooaroo · 2006-02-27 18:49:28

Rev. Nathan wrote:

anyone know? i wish for this feature so that people like my mother can just turn the computer on and go; and not be bothered by a login prompt.

What WM/DE are you using? If it's KDE, it's fairly simple. Open the KDE Control Center. Click on System Administration/Login Manager and it should all become clear.

I'm assuming that you need kdm to load first, so put 'kdm' at the end of your DAEMONS array in /etc/rc.conf.

Cotton · 2006-02-27 19:59:19

Rev. Nathan wrote:

anyone know? i wish for this feature so that people like my mother can just turn the computer on and go; and not be bothered by a login prompt.

As long as she doesn't just switch the computer off and leave...

Moo-Crumpus · 2006-02-27 20:08:28

Bothered by a login? Good god.

arooaroo · 2006-02-27 20:32:32

Moo-Crumpus wrote:

Bothered by a login? Good god.

Firstly, this is "newbie corner", so please leave the smart-arse comments to some other group. He asked how to do it, not whether the approach was officially endorsed by the AL community.

The context is such that this approach (for the convenience of someone's parents) it's hardly going to constitute to worlds' biggest security threat.

Now c'mon guys, chill out.

Dusty · 2006-02-27 20:33:46

nothing wrong with automated login for a personal system. Just keep in mind that the guy that breaks into your house would be able to log in and go too. But I'd be more worried about him taking my hard drives ang going by that point. ;-)

Both KDM and GDM provide automated login. I'm not sure of the specifics for GDM, but for KDM its as arooaroo described. Get KDM working first if you don't already have graphical login (info in the wiki on this). Then use KDE Control centre, in administrator mode, to set it to log some user in automatically.

Dusty

Moo-Crumpus · 2006-02-27 21:47:26

As it is a newbie corner, he/she should be told about that it is a really stupid idea. Anyone else knows, but newbies maybe not. An advice to make a mistake is no advice, that's a trap. If one is bored of logging in, the person is also bored of security related thoughts at all. This makes no sense - and this is my opinion. You can advice whatever you want, I spoke my mind.

arooaroo · 2006-02-27 22:02:46

Moo-Crumpus wrote:

As it is a newbie corner, he/she should be told about that it is a really stupid idea. Anyone else knows, but newbies maybe not. An advice to make a mistake is no advice, that's a trap. If one is bored of logging in, the person is also bored of security related thoughts at all. This makes no sense - and this is my opinion. You can advice whatever you want, I spoke my mind.

It's not what you said, but the way you said it. You never discussed any pros or cons, you just said "Good god", which is hardly constructive.

I don't know about your Mum, but I can't *tell* my Mum how to set up/use her computer! It's up to her and if she likes things I recommend she'll go along. The number of times I've told her about using Firefox and yet she still uses IE. So, I think that the OP has made a considerable achievement already by getting his parent(s) to experiment with Linux.

Auto-login is one of many potential security risks. Some are more risky than others. For a home setup, this is not major, unless you know that you have a lot of confidential information on the disk. Funnily enough, I've heard a number of cases on these forums where people have been hacked, and it had nothing to do with auto-logins.

Dusty · 2006-02-27 22:07:17

If you have a lot of confidential information on your disk, you're screwed before somebody gets autologin onto your comp. If they want the information, they'll take the disk, mount it somewhere else, etc. You'd have to use an encrypted filesystem to get around that or something.

To the best of my knowledge, autologin does not make it easier to get a remote login onto the system. If they have physicall access to the system, you've got bigger things to worry about; hell, I'd skip the autologin and reboot with a liveCD so I could get root access to the system!

Dusty

Cotton · 2006-02-27 22:19:53

Autologin is only a security risk if there's the likelihood of shared access.
Unless you can't trust your relatives

jaboua · 2006-02-27 23:01:16

In GDM with the default GTK+ greeter:

Select Actions -> Configure Login Manager. Type in root password. Select "Login a user automaticly on first bootup", and type in a username below. I haven't tried it for two years or something, but it should work...

stonecrest · 2006-02-28 01:48:15

There are some nice wiki entries on auto-logging in as well as autostarting X upon login. I've done it myself, it's quite easy. I basically press the power button on my laptop and come back to fvwm

No need for *DM.

patroclo7 · 2006-02-28 13:14:44

I am somewhat suprised to see that anyone here presupposes that X is launched at boot, through a login manager. May be that his mum likes autologin, but loves cli too (I agree with such a mum about my home workstation, and I would be happy to be his son). If so, you can autologin on console through a little hack described in an howto you can find in the archlinux wiki, or you can use mingetty as a replacement of agetty in /etc/inittab. Mingetty has a specific autologin option you can define in inittab. You can find a PKGBUILD for mingetty in the AUR... I contributed that PKGBUILD and I will be happy to help you about any mingetty issue.

Dieter@be · 2007-02-04 13:16:47

For my uncle's comp i used the "Starting X as prefered user without logging in" method described here:
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Start_X_at_boot

works like a charm

A similar approach is mentioned in "Alternate method" on http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Add … on_startup

didn't try this

Arch Linux

#1 2006-02-27 07:06:26

Log in Automatically?

#2 2006-02-27 07:13:29

Re: Log in Automatically?

#3 2006-02-27 18:36:02

Re: Log in Automatically?

#4 2006-02-27 18:49:28

Re: Log in Automatically?

#5 2006-02-27 19:59:19

Re: Log in Automatically?

#6 2006-02-27 20:08:28

Re: Log in Automatically?

#7 2006-02-27 20:32:32

Re: Log in Automatically?

#8 2006-02-27 20:33:46

Re: Log in Automatically?

#9 2006-02-27 21:47:26

Re: Log in Automatically?

#10 2006-02-27 22:02:46

Re: Log in Automatically?

#11 2006-02-27 22:07:17

Re: Log in Automatically?

#12 2006-02-27 22:19:53

Re: Log in Automatically?

#13 2006-02-27 23:01:16

Re: Log in Automatically?

#14 2006-02-28 01:48:15

Re: Log in Automatically?

#15 2006-02-28 13:14:44

Re: Log in Automatically?

#16 2007-02-04 13:16:47

Re: Log in Automatically?

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