I have a 15.10 64bit machine with multiple user accounts.
Normally, I select Ubuntu in GRUB, it boots and shows me the login screen, I select an account, enter the password and start my applications.
This is ok and should stay that way, but I would love to have another option in the GRUB menu:
If I select that one, it should boot the same Ubuntu installation, but automatically log into one specific user account (which password-protected) and start a script, which may not be launched if I log in normally.
As the auto-login bypasses the account password, I would also love to password protect this GRUB boot option, so that I have to enter my password (or a different one) into GRUB before it boots this single options.
Is it possible to set something like this up? How would I have to do it?
Best Answer
Work in progress
This can be accomplished by using:
For this example, I will show how to setup a kiosk mode using Google Chrome.
The script
Keep it at, say
/usr/local/bin/chrome-kiosk.sh
, make it executable. Note that I usemetacity
for a simple window manager that provides me with a workable setup without further configuration.The X session
Save it at
/usr/share/xsessions/chrome.desktop
. If you use a different script, change at least theExec
line accordingly.The LightDM configuration
Save it as
/etc/lightdm/autologin-lightdm.conf
. Replaceusername
with your desired user name.The LightDM service
This creates a custom copy of the default
lightdm.service
namedautologin-lightdm.service
at/etc/systemd/system
, with theExecStart
line changed to:The kernel paramaters
To test this out, at the GRUB menu, press e to edit the Ubuntu entry. Find the
linux
line, and append:(You can omit the
.service
extensions.)Press CtrlX. You should be logged into the user and have a maximized Google Chrome window.
GRUB configuration
TBD.