Am 29.08.2012, 03:21 Uhr, schrieb Harald Sitter <sit...@kde.org>:

On Wed, Aug 29, 2012 at 2:59 AM, Thomas Lübking
<thomas.luebk...@gmail.com> wrote:
but I'm willing to
be enlightened about the striking advances of this integration.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DesktopTeam/Specs/Intrepid/GuestAccount


Thanks for the link.

Reads like they're looking for

useradd -md /tmp/ubuntu-guest ubuntu-guest
usermod -L ubuntu-guest

and a guest-session script

---- guest-session---
#!/bin/sh
if [ $(id -u) != 0 ]; then
   logger "`whoami` allowed guest session"
   /usr/lib/kde4/libexec/kscreenlocker --forcelock &
   sudo/pkexec guest-session
   logger "`whoami` permitted guest session ended"
   exit
fi

su ubuntu-guest
export DISPLAY=:1 #todo - not hardcode :1
X :1 & sleep 1 & ck-launch-session -display :1 startkde #nobody really uses unity
#or so - X does not auto-end in this just written down script.

/---------

This is it?

Brings us to the questioned DM integration requirement.
The only part remotely suggesting a special integration with a DM seems:

"Thus we will extend gdm to allow spawning a new X server for the special :guest user (which is not a valid PAM user name and thus cannot collide with any real user)."

What is no way a requirement but a choice.
There is no reason to control access this way (ie. prevent remote logins on that user or whatever - pam_access does that and locked users can't login this way at all) and there's no reason to create an invalid PAM user account to prevent collisions either (one can pre-allocate one or create one guest-<rnd> and check that against /etc/passwd until there's no clash) and, actually, prevents two coincident guest logins.

Just locking the account and sudo/polkit su to it would ensure to only allow such authenticated "login".

So maybe i'm just stupid, but my question frankly remains:
why should one turn the DM into an AM to add a locked down guest account, if the same can be achieved by a mini script and maybe a polkit rule?

The functionality can be provided aside the DM for those who really want it - the particular thing is called "LightDM" and it's not even "only" a DM?


Cheers,
Thomas

-----

Before mentioned:
The only aspect are guest logins from the DM as *suggested* by

""An existing user must authenticate the start of a guest session" should be optional, so that someone can use the computer without anyone else being present."

What however completely contradicts (the very much true)

"This design shouldn't aim for ultimate security. In the use cases, the guest users are somewhat trusted and also observed while they work on the box. We do not design a solution that can resist half an hour of unobserved tampering. In particular, this is not strong enough to be a fully secure kiosk solution (which is why we require authentication from an existing user)."

And also invalidates the

"Common practice for many people is to create a "guest" user account with a trivial or empty or empty password, but this is a potential security threat."

rationale, because one just added a permanent pwdless account (ideally at least not for remote logins)

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