Darren: On 08/19/09 04:08, Darren J Moffat wrote: > Brian Cameron wrote: >> The GDM co-maintainers did not like the above proposal. They >> disagreed strongly with the idea of including or excluding users >> based on whether they have a face image defined. Remember the >> face browser shows users who do not have a face image defined with >> a generic "face" image. >> >> Instead, they propose the following: >> >> Add back the GDM Include and Exclude configuration options so that >> the sysadmin can define which users should be included in the face >> browser even if they have not previously logged in and which users >> should be always excluded. This is how the old GDM also worked. >> Will this satisfy the opt-in/opt-out requirements? >> >> Or do we also need the ability for opt-out to be a user preference so >> that user's can opt-out of the face browser even if they do not have >> the authority to modify the GDM Include/Exclude configuration options? >> If so, can someone give a justification why users need the ability to >> do this? > > That would be nice but I think doing at least what the old GDM did would > be better than the all or nothing situation that was originally proposed.
Right. >> In my discussion with the upstream maintainers, we couldn't think of a >> use >> case where it makes sense to allow users to opt-out of the face browser. >> Each example we could think of seemed better managed by just having the >> sysadmin control this via the Include/Exclude configuration options. > > What about because it is users personal wish not to have even their real > name shown up because the systems are in a public area - even if the > host admin has not disabled the face browser ? Consider Sun Rays in drop > in centres. > > Remember that this information is going to be visible to anyone walking > past the machine without them being a valid user. I am not sure that is the best example. Would you want a Face Browser in that sort of drop-in center to begin with? The Face Browser is more clearly designed for systems where the same users will tend to login. The Face Browser would be cumbersome to use in environments where the users will vary greatly. Further, since Sun Rays use Smart Cards and NSCM, I do not think the typical Sun Ray installation would want to ever enable the Face Browser since it is not designed to work with smart card PAM stacks. Instead users would typically use their Smart Card to self-identify. If we can think of better examples, that would help to encourage adding this sort of feature. I will discuss this with the upstream community and file a bug so the issue can be further considered. That said, I intend to only add the Include, Exclude, and IncludeAll configuration options with the initial GDM rewrite integration. These are non-controversial with upstream. > I'm happy enough with the proposal to bring back the admin level control. Thanks. >> If this is needed, then we could add a new field to the $HOME/.dmrc file >> (e.g. ShowInFaceBrowser=true), which the user could change to false if >> they >> no longer wish to show up in the face browser. > > That would be be very nice, but isn't dmrc a file controlled by a > freedesktop.org spec ? Or is that just the .desktop files ? The dmrc file is shared between GNOME and KDE, but there is no reason why it could not support a GDM specific extension. KDM could also adopt it if it is useful to them. Though, as you suggest, such an opt-out mechanism could probably be implemented in different ways. So, it is probably best to file a bug with upstream and let the community consider whether this is a feature that should be added and the best way to address this. If the dmrc file is the best way, then we should discuss and coordinate with the KDM project. It is probably not a good idea to rush ahead and try to implement this sort of new interface at the end of the 2.28 release cycle. Brian
