GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 587750
GDM rewrite needs a configuration GUI panel similar to 2.20 (gdmsetup)
Last modified: 2011-05-15 18:48:38 UTC
Currently there is not a "friendly" way to config GDM similar to the older GDM. I realize that the new GDM is a "work in progress", but even a simple control panel for basic changes would be very helpful. Other information:
Description: Ubuntu karmic (development branch) Release: 9.10 gdm: Installed: 2.26.1-0ubuntu2 Candidate: 2.26.1-0ubuntu2 Version table: *** 2.26.1-0ubuntu2 0 500 http://archive.ubuntu.com karmic/main Packages 100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
I would "wish" for: A very simple dialog that would allow lets say up to 30sec for time delay, choices as to who is default, autologin on/off (maybe a checkbox), facebrowser on/off (same comment) & maybe a background change (strictly a wish item)--
Created attachment 137866 [details] mockup of simple setting panel Wishlist mockup for basic setting modification for new GDM
the Canonical Desktop Team is wanting to work on this issue for GNOME 2.28, has this dialog been discussed recently or does the upstream team has an opinion and what options should be there?
I talked with a few people this weekend--I hope that some momentum has been generated--it is very good to hear that the Canonical Desktop team wants to get involved... I do understand that other distros have been using the new GDM (and I've run across a fairly large numbers of bug reports from them too)---but Ubuntu is after all touted as the first move to distro for ex-windows users---so we really need to make the experience as smooth as possible---it simply will not do to have users edit config files to get the functions that they want--most of us in Ubuntu testing don't have a problem with that..but I have a real problem with apps that have greatly reduced function compared to the prior version.
*** Bug 553250 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Refer to bug #553250 for some additional information about this.
Created attachment 139450 [details] [review] Adds PolicyKit authorization to the org.gnome.DisplayManager.Settings D-Bus interface This patch uses PolicyKit for authorizing access to the org.gnome.DisplayManager.Settings D-Bus interface. This will allow user-space programs to access the configuration for default users and XDMCP settings in a safe manner. Please review if you have a good knowledge of PolicyKit.
Created attachment 139611 [details] [review] Use PolicyKit for access to org.gnome.DisplayManager.Settings Generated patch correctly. Note that there is an issue exposing this interface as it contains various other configuration (e.g. the user that GDM runs as). There may be a need to make a new interface for user-configuration.
*** Bug 588402 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Created attachment 140097 [details] [review] Use PolicyKit for access to org.gnome.DisplayManager.Settings Updated patch adding an Unlock() method
Created attachment 140098 [details] [review] Provides a basic GDM setup tool able to configure the defalt user and a login delay
Created attachment 140118 [details] [review] rovides a basic GDM setup tool able to configure the defalt user and a login delay Updated from the previous patch to look more similar to existing configuration dialogs (i.e. a mess :))
Could you explain how this patch deals with file permission issues? Obviously the configuration files are owned by root (for the /etc/gdm/custom.conf file) and the "gdm' user (in the "gdm" user's GConf settings). Is the expectation that a normal user would launch the configuration program? How does the setup program ensure that only authorized users are able to modify the GDM configuration? It would obviously be a serious security issue if non-authorized users could change configuration options like turning on AutomaticLogin. The old GDM required the end user to enter the root password to be able to launch the setup program. Does the proposed patch do something similar or a different technique? Although I did review the patch, it is quite large. I didn't see any code to handle this sort of thing, but perhaps I just missed it on my first review?
Yes, the configuration applet can be launched by a normal user. The authorization is handled by PolicyKit which means that only users with system privileges can access this D-Bus interface and only if they enter their password when prompted. PolicyKit means that a system administrator can control this access in fine detail too if required (i.e. only letting certain users/groups access to this information) The changes are in two patches: - The first adds PolicyKit support to the existing org.gnome.DisplayManager.Settings D-Bus interface. This interface is provided by the GDM daemon and the daemon reads and writes /etc/gdm/custom.conf. - The second patch is the GDM configuration applet (the big patch). It just a standard GTK+ application that accesses the org.gnome.DisplayManager.Settings interface.
A tiny comment on the patch; could we have a title like "Login Screen" instead of gdmsetup?
I think it should just have the necessary option, like: changing the background, login as, login after ... minutes, login automatically, and that should be it, not to much because it becomes in a low performance tool, things should just have what is necessary to have, I would not like to be able to change too much stuff like changing the colour of the login square and stuffs like that, which are pointless, so please don't be pointless, and we are going to be a very stable Operating System over any other.
Created attachment 141608 [details] [review] Provides a basic GDM setup tool able to configure the defalt user and a login delay Updated to set the window icon and title as noticed by Marcus
Created attachment 141611 [details] [review] Provides a basic GDM setup tool able to configure the defalt user and a login delay Fixes a crash if no automatic/timed users defined
Created attachment 141612 [details] [review] Provides a basic GDM setup tool able to configure the defalt user and a login delay Removed some dead code
Created attachment 143564 [details] [review] Provides a basic GDM setup tool able to configure the defalt user and a login delay Make window fixed size (i.e. not resizable)
*** Bug 565150 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
(In reply to comment #21) > Created an attachment (id=143564) [details] [review] > Provides a basic GDM setup tool able to configure the defalt user and a login > delay > > Make window fixed size (i.e. not resizable) Surely there must be at least one gdm developer who could review or at least make some kind of comment on this patch, it's been 2 months? Having at least some user-level configuration tool would be better than none (which is what we have since it was removed in 2.26).
Can it change GDM back to the login/password dialog instead of that user list? Because the basic property of the user list is, that gdm needs to read all the ~2200 local users from our LDAP, acessing (and thus automounting) the home directory for each of them to get their icon/photo, and only then allow the very patient user to log in :-(
Also note that the latest version of GDM 2.29 supports debug/Enable, greeter/Include, greeter/Exclude, and greeter/IncludeAll. It would be good if the configuration program supported these. The greeter/Include, greeter/Exclude and greeter/IncludeAll options control how the Face Browser is shown.
I am looking at a similar problem for a new user account dialog that I am writing, which will also expose some login screen configuration. We want to allow configuring things like: - language (of the login screen) - autologin (yes/no, and which user) - whether to show the user list - whether to show the restart/shutdown/suspend actions - whether to display password hints - guest login Some more details can be found here: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/UserAccountDialog There are some fundamental issues here that just adding policykit support into the existing settings interface is not going to solve: 1) The configuration options that are interesting for these config tools are not all available via the gdm settings api, at least half of them live in the gconf database of the gdm user. 2) selinux prevents gdm from rewriting its own config file (and with some good reasons)
*** Bug 609483 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
In the autologin field ROOT should be available. It should display some warnings and ask for confirmation but generally shouldn't be forbidden.
I think migrating our settings to dconf and adding some settings controls to the account dialog is the way forward.
Created attachment 165913 [details] [review] PolicyKit patch, improved Luca Bruno did a bit of cleanup on the Ubuntu PolicyKit patch. I think we should really move forward with this. Some of the settings need to be made configurable.
Created attachment 165914 [details] [review] gdmsetup patch, cleaned up Some cleanup work on the gdmsetup patch too: - Get rid of sessions, they're chosen in the greeter. - Get rid of sound and face browser, they are not gdm options. - Get rid of dbus, use GdmSettingsClient instead. - Use libgdmuser of simple-greeter instead of copying gdm-user* code. - Use PolkitLockButton.