Ubuntu – Enable/Disable Passwordless Login/Autologin Via GUI/Command Line

command lineconfigurationgdmpassword

Before I ask the question, would someone please help stipulate the Ubuntu definition for these two seemingly identical but different terms (I've given drafts.):

Autologin – When you power up the computer, you sign directly into your account.

Passwordless Login – When you pick a user at the greeter and you are logged in without a prompt for a password.

Now, for the question. How do we change each via the command line? Is the solution the same for all currently supported releases?

And for those who would rather use the gui method, how is that done?

At the bottom of this pic is the checkbox for a passwordless login. It says:

Don't ask for password on login

How do I do this with the command line?

enter image description here

Best Answer

I honestly don't know the difference. I'm not sure I've seen the phrase "passwordless login" where I haven't just assumed they're talking about auto-login.

For machines that use LightDM (11.04 up) you can add a user to the configuration in /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf using the autologin-user variable so the file ends up looking something like this:

[SeatDefaults]
autologin-guest=false
autologin-user=oli
autologin-user-timeout=0
autologin-session=lightdm-autologin
greeter-session=
user-session=ubuntu

That gives you a screen where that user (oli in this case) is logged in automatically after a few seconds. If you want to alter that timeout so it happens more quickly , you can play around with the autologin-user-timeout variable in the same file.

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – How to enter the Default Keyring password via the command line

Thanks to python-gnomekeyring, this is relatively easy:

python -c "import gnomekeyring;gnomekeyring.unlock_sync(None, 'my password');"

Or as a proper script:

#!/usr/bin/env python
import gnomekeyring
gnomekeyring.unlock_sync(None, 'my password');

I think you don't need to install the package. But it can't hurt to try.

Keep in mind that storing your password on your hard disk is an immense security risk. You should be using this instead:

#!/usr/bin/env python

import gnomekeyring
import getpass

gnomekeyring.unlock_sync(None, getpass.getpass('Password: '));

You can save this script, for example, as unlock-keyring.py and then do the following:

sudo mv unlock-keyring.py /usr/bin/unlock-keyring
sudo chmod a+x /usr/bin/unlock-keyring

From then, you can always just type unlock-keyring and be prompted for a password. Don't do this with the version that contains your password.

You can replace None with the name of your keyring, e.g. 'session', if you want to unlock one that isn't the default.

I'm having a hard time testing this properly, so please let me know if it doesn't work and I'll take a look at it right away. Also let me know if it does work :-)

Ubuntu – How to start GUI from command line

If you tried the command startx, but the error command not found was returned, then to install a graphical desktop, in case it is not installed, you would type this:

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop

Best Answer

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Ubuntu – How to enter the Default Keyring password via the command line

Ubuntu – How to start GUI from command line

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