Bug #290467, wether to add doumentation for automatic login.

[Joel Goguen]

I've noticed that most of the Windows machines I see that automatically
log in do so because the user has no password and they are the sole user
on the machine.  I don't believe this is something Ubuntu allows (the
user created during install has to have a password) so the GNOME
autologin settings are (barely) more secure than what I perceive the
most common way for Windows users to achieve this.

Having said that, I don't see a reason not to document that it's
possible to do and how to set it up for a single user system.  Provided
there's a warning of why this is a bad idea and users should carefully
consider whether they really want to do this.  For the average user with
a desktop at home and few to none untrusted users passing through, I
don't see why not.  This also makes for a great public access terminal
setup - install Ubuntu, create an admin user, then create a second user
with no sudo access and set that user to automatically log in.  For a
desktop with a lot of people passing by (university/college residence,
students living off campus with roommates they don't necessarily
know...) or for laptop users, this is a bad idea, but that doesn't stop
people from simply removing their Windows password to make it
automatically log in...

My short opinion: document how to set it up, but warn about security
risks.

On Wed, 2008-10-29 at 14:53 +0000, Dougie Richardson wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> With regard to the above bug [1], there is a request to add
> documentation explaining how to automatically login.
> 
> As Matthew, Phil and I have posted on the issue I think it worth
> further discussion. The poster asks for passwordless root access
> login, which we agree is not an option.
> 
> However adding documentation on the "feature", with a mind to Windows
> user's wanting it, adapting Linux to Windows users - particularly the
> lazy. I am not against the good features but am for the poorer.
> 
> The easiest way to login automatically in Windows is with TweakUI
> provided by Microsoft Powertoys and it warns against using it. If
> Windows users are warned of the implications of using it it seems at
> odds with the idea of a single, common Linux distribution that anyone
> can use if we support features that have dubious security.
> 
> [1] https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-doc/+bug/290467 
> 
> Dougie Richardson (dougie at lynxworks.eu), sent from my Aspire One -
> excuse the msipellings. 
-- 
Joel Goguen
Bug-free code is a myth.
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