elementary/greeter

Login and Lock Screen greeter for elementary OS and Pantheon, using LightDM

Greeter

Building and Installation

You'll need the following dependencies:

• gnome-settings-daemon >= 3.27
• libaccountsservice-dev
• libgdk-pixbuf2.0-dev
• libgranite-dev >= 5.5.0
• libgtk-3-dev
• libhandy-1-dev >= 0.90.0
• liblightdm-gobject-1-dev
• libmutter-6-dev
• libx11-dev
• meson
• valac

Run meson to configure the build environment and then ninja to build

meson build --prefix=/usr
cd build
ninja

To install, use ninja install

sudo ninja install

Testing & Debugging

Run LightDM in test mode with Xephyr:

lightdm --test-mode --debug

You can then find the debug log in ~/.cache/lightdm/log

greeter's Issues

Show notifications

For example:
[AppCenter icon] 2 new updates available
[Telegram icon] 3 new messages
[Terminal icon] 1 job done

get wallpaper scaling method

We should get the wallpaper scaling method that the user has specified for their wallpaper.

Launchpad Details: #LP1005691 Daniel Fore - 2012-05-28 23:18:45 +0000

Greeter should display a useful graphical error-message in case Clutter can't be initialized

The current thing with "Stopping System V runlevel compatibility" as the last message before the greeter starts is leading people to the idea that this is the actual error message, which is not the case. In most cases it's a error that we can't get a XServer or Hardware acceleration or something like that.

Launchpad Details: #LP1346946 Raphael Isemann - 2014-07-22 14:38:04 +0000

Wake from Sleep

This may be specific to my laptop only, but I have noticed that when waking from sleep, there is a black screen, then it shows my desktop, then another black screen, then the Greeter comes up. This takes about 3 seconds total.

Update: It's not just my laptop

greeter does not use active display

When using an external display, logging out activates built-in (disabled) display to show greeter. Once credentials are entered, Pantheon session starts on the external display as expected. Greeter seems to have display choice hard coded.

Launchpad Details: #LP1050709 ttosttos - 2012-09-14 02:25:52 +0000

Use palette api to shade background

We should use the super awesome palette API to shade the background.

This will help with busy backgrounds to create a more solid color for the foreground to contrast.

This is also similar to what android 8.1 does as it's less intensive than using blur.

By shade I mean overlaying the prominent background color at like 0.4 opacity

The Code should use a namespace

We currently use no namespace for all the code in the greeter which is bad. So someone (probably me) needs to fix that.

Launchpad Details: #LP1387395 Raphael Isemann - 2014-10-29 21:56:18 +0000

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Pantheon Greeter should offer assistance if an user has an invalid .Xauthority/.ICEauthority file

Most login loops are caused by people running something as root and the mentioned files getting owned by root.

Pantheon greeter should detect if this is the case and directly display a help window. The content of the help window should contain information what went wrong that and can optionally offer to resolve the problem (e.g. fixing the ownership of the files).

The problem with automatic resolving the problem is that we need to find a good way to get temporary su privileges, so if anyone has an idea how to do this, feel free to comment.

Launchpad Details: #LP1509474 Raphael Isemann - 2015-10-23 18:48:12 +0000

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Profile icon for guest user is confusing

On first login, it appears that the user profile icon is being accidentally displayed a second time below the login box. I believe that it's intended to be a way to log in as the guest user, though I'm not always successful in actually being able to use it.

I'm thinking my confusion would go away if we:

• said "Guest Sign In" similar to how my sign in box says my full name
• use a different profile icon, even just a grey version of the default

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two required login mechanisms do not work (unix, otp)

Using pam_google_authenticator and pam_unix with both set to required the login fails. I attached the lightdm.log from the pantheon-greeter.

Launchpad Details: #LP1262245 No Name - 2013-12-18 14:58:15 +0000

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Allow for newly created users to set a password.

When a user is created without a password, they need to be able to set the new password prior to logging in. This needs to be supported in the greeter.

Launchpad Details: #LP1405259 Sam Hewitt - 2014-12-23 19:01:10 +0000

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Segfault when icons not found in current theme

I've installed pantheon-greeter on my gentoo box using the elementary-overlay maintained here: https://github.com/pimvullers/elementary

When pantheon-greeter is installed without the elementary-icon-theme package, some icons cannot be loaded. In my case, "avatar-default", "system-shutdown-symbolic", and "preferences-desktop-accessibility-symbolic" could not be found.

When pantheon-greeter attempts to use these icons, it crashes with a segfault.

I've attached a patch that prevents the greeter from crashing when these icons aren't present; however, this means that the power and accessibility icons aren't rendered. Preferably the buttons would be replaced with text, but I'm not familiar enough with the greeter code to make that change.

Launchpad Details: #LP1181868 Adam Mills - 2013-05-19 22:23:01 +0000

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2-Factor authentication not working in logging screen

I have just configured in elementaryOS 0.3.2 Google Authenticator to have 2FA enabled. The instuctions followed are the following (original source: https://askubuntu.com/questions/193248/google-authenticator-for-desktop-lightdm-or-gdm-plugin).

Installation

sudo apt-get install libpam-google-authenticator

Running the app

google-authenticator

Some options configured afterwards

[...]

Added to the /etc/pam.d/login the following lines at the end to enable it.

2-Factor Authentication

auth required pam_google_authenticator.so

After doing so: Ctrl+Shift+F1

The verification code is requested as expected and works perfectly. Sweet.

I wanted however to activate this option in the login screen. Thus I added the following lines to: /etc/pam.d/lightdm and /etc/pam.d/lightdm-greeter.

2-Factor Authentication

auth required pam_google_authenticator.so

However, when trying to login and the password is requested (and properly provided), the Login screen does not request the verification code as it happens with the login and I cannot connect! Am I missing something?

NOTE: I could deactivate the pam.d configuration by login with the terminal (Ctrl+Shift+F1 again), inserting the verificatoin code for the 2FA, sudoing, and removing the added lines, but I feel that something needs to be fixed around there...

Launchpad Details: #LP1572935 Félix Brezo - 2016-04-21 10:09:53 +0000

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Add music controls to lock screen

When you are listening to a playlist in the music app if the elementary OS or the user blocks the session, the music stops.
It would be better if it was possible to control the music from the login screen, without being necessary to type in the password again.
The music then would be interrupted only if the user wants or if another user logs in.

Individual keyboard layouts are not maintained for individual users

I have two accounts on all of my computers, one for me and one for my wife. I am a Dvorak user and she is a QWERTY user. If I go to System Settings and set the only layout to "Dvorak" for me, those changes propagate across the entire OS. She can't log in because the layout is in Dvorak. If she sets the only layout to "US (QWERTY)," those changes are likewise global and I can't log in because I assume the keyboard is in Dvorak for my account. Once I do log in via QWERTY, my account is now QWERTY.

Expected functionality:
Each user should be able to maintain their own keyboard layout(s) separate from other users.
At the login screen, each user's main layout should be used. When I select my wife's account, I should expect that the layout will be set to QWERTY. When I select my account, I should expect that the layout be set to Dvorak.
Once a user logs in using their layout for their account, their layout should be used for their entire session.

Currently, none of the above is working and it's pretty frustrating.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: elementary OS 0.2
Package: elementary-desktop 1.284-0355precise1 [origin: LP-PPA-elementary-os-daily]
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.2.0-34.53-generic 3.2.33
Uname: Linux 3.2.0-34-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.0.1-0ubuntu15
Architecture: amd64
CrashDB: elementary_meta
Date: Wed Dec 5 12:41:41 2012
InstallationMedia: elementary OS 0.2 "Luna" - Beta 1 amd64 (20121114)
MarkForUpload: True
ProcEnviron:
PATH=(custom, no user)
LANG=en_US.UTF-8
SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: elementary-meta
SuspiciousXErrors:

ThirdParty: True
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

Launchpad Details: #LP1086990 Naftuli Kay - 2012-12-05 20:48:20 +0000

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better time format support in login screen

After installing elementaryOS Loki in Chinese (Taiwan) language, I encountered 2 problems with the time format in the login screen. Please see the attached screen photo for details.

1. Chinese (Taiwan) locale uses "%p%l:%M" for 12hr format, but translators can only translate "%l:%M" and " %p" separately in Launchpad which cannot deal with the format we use. [1] The better way to do it is to let translators translate "%l:%M %p" as a whole not separately.

2. The time string in Chinese is cut in a small screen, the resolution is 1366x768. Please see the attachment.

[1] https://translations.launchpad.net/pantheon-greeter/trunk/+pots/pantheon-greeter/zh_TW/+translate

Launchpad Details: #LP1624217 Cheng-Chia Tseng - 2016-09-16 05:18:39 +0000

The Date & Time are too off on the right. They are not symmetrical to the user login chooser.

I already put this up on reddit actually and Dan already replied, but I thought I will just put it up here so that it goes in an actual bug tracker :)

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Blur Wallpaper

The blurred text shadow definitely makes text more readable on most backgrounds. But for a background that happens to have text on it (Such as our pre-release wallpaper) it's still not quite perfect.

The text would be much more readable if we slightly blurred and/or darkened the wallpaper so that any background text is no longer strictly legible and focused, and any bright spots are not pure white.

Launchpad Details: #LP1036484 Daniel Fore - 2012-08-14 03:47:42 +0000

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The bluetooth is turn off at the startup

The bluetooth is turn off at the startup. I have Logitech MX Master which use bluetooth to connect with PC and I can't do nothing with my mouse until log in.

Greeter is blurry in HiDPI

we have the correct UI scale, but all the things in the clutter actor are blurry. It looks like the UI scale is set some time after the greeter is initialized. Either we need to wait until gsd starts up and sets the UI scale, or we need to somehow refresh the actor after the UI scale changes

Launchpad Details: #LP1590548 Daniel Fore - 2016-06-08 20:14:18 +0000

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No user names visible at Pantheon Greeter until click

After updating to loki, at the login screen all users are represented by blue icons. I don't see the login names behind the blue icons until I click in the space behind the icon. (I have to click icon by icon in order to find the correct user to login.)
The name should be shown at the side of the icon, just like it used to be on elementary 0.3.
This is really bad for the usability on multi user systems.

I found at least two threads talking about the problem:
https://elementaryos.stackexchange.com/questions/8220/no-user-names-visible-at-pantheon-greeter-until-click
https://elementaryos.stackexchange.com/questions/11411/show-user-names-on-the-login-screen

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Greeter does not respect displays settings

I can not set primary monitor before sign in. I have tried copy ~/.config/monitors.xml file to /var/lib/lightdm/.config but it did not help.

I have Dell U2414H attachted by HDMI to Dell Inspirion 5378 laptop.

[ARM] use egl equivalent instead of gl

This is blocking elementary OS being ported entirely to armhf

(05:04:34 AM) ricotz: pantheon-greeter must use some egl equivalent instead of gl when building on armhf

Launchpad Details: #LP1214833 Cody Garver - 2013-08-21 10:49:38 +0000

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Use Granite for `day_format`

As discussed here, day_format should also make use of the Granite utility. This might require changes in Granite to add is_abbreviated to switch between %A, %B and %a, %b.

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User mouse settings aren't applied

Oh! Noticed a glitch, I'm left-handed. Change the mouse buttons. While working in the OS - normal. But when included in the primary menu, where you enter the password, the buttons will change position on the "right-handed". Then entered the password, went into the operating system, again everything is normal :)

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Right-click on lower screen edge allows resizing of the rendered area

If you go into the greeter, move the cursor to the bottom of the screen and hold right-click, you can resize the rendering area.

Expected result: On all edges (haven't tried all) you shouldn't be able to resize the rendering are.

Launchpad Details: #LP1132510 Raphael Isemann - 2013-02-24 18:18:03 +0000

This session is locked

Steps to reproduce:

1. login again after locking the screen
2. "This session is locked"
3. greeter displayed again
4. login again
5. "This session is locked" shortly displayed
6. then finally logged in

This is not reproducible every time. Actually happened very few times.

lightdm.log
x-0.log
x-1.log

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elementary OS 0.4.1 Loki
Kernel: 4.10.0-35-generic
on Dell Latitude E5470 (Intel i5, 8 GB RAM)

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Get Color Profile

We should grab the system color profile. If one doesn't exist, we should grab the user's color profile.

This profile should be applied before the animation starts.

Launchpad Details: #LP1005693 Daniel Fore - 2012-05-28 23:23:35 +0000

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Create release tag

Hi,
In order to package this software better on other distributions it is essential to tag it with a special version number. It would be nice if you could do that and also sign the tags and the release archives. You can use gpgit for this too.

Thanks in advance!

Shows some parts English although language is not an English.

In case of "locale - USA, language -ko", Greeter shows some part English, although other components of system shows correctly Korean.

Time isn't displayed in 24h format, despite setting in switchboard

In the System Settings, I set the time format to 24h but greeter ignores this.

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Plank and Wingpanel absent when login

Sometime, when I log in, I will have a mouse and the desktop background but no dock or top panel.

My workaround is to log into a tty, launch htop and kill /usr/lib/gnome-sessiosn/gnome-session-binary --session=pantheon with SIGKILL.
This will bring back the login screen, and after 2 or 3 try, I have a dock and a panel.

I have join some logs. I think lightdm.log could help you see the problem.
log.zip

Please get in touch if you need other informations.

Pressing power key should not cause a shutdown when users are logged on.

If I wake my system from suspend and accidentally press power key twice my system will proceed to wake up then immediately shutdown WITHOUT warning of logged on users, unsaved work etc...

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Display freezes often

The display often freezes while being in the greeter view (such as when logging in or unlocking).

When the freeze happens, I can move my mouse and see the mouse cursor moving accordingly, but clicking or typing on the keyboard doesn't change anything on the display. I can type in my password and press Enter and I'll be logged in as soon as the freeze ends. This usually takes about a minute.

If the freeze happens after the login/unlock screen has been shown, the display stays like that. Otherwise (such as sometimes when booting up), the display is completely black (aside from the mouse cursor).

I'm experiencing this issue with a Dell laptop which has Intel HD 4000 + AMD Radeon 7670m hybrid graphics. I believe I'm on the open source radeon graphics driver. Don't know if it can affect, but my home directory is encrypted.

I've had this issue since the very beginning of using elementary OS Loki stable version. It's by far the most annoying issue I have had to endure.

Login screen is the resolution of the primary monitor on all monitors

On log in screen with dual monitors there is a big black bar on the bottom of one of the monitors until you log in which then it goes away

Launchpad Details: #LP1355561 harris - 2014-08-12 02:56:00 +0000

Slide up panel before logging in

When a user successfully logs in, the panel should slide up out of the display. In this way, it will look like the greeter panel is being "changed out" for the user's panel.

Launchpad Details: #LP1083446 Daniel Fore - 2012-11-27 06:25:04 +0000

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Keyboard input focus on lock screen

After unlock a keyboard input focus not on a password field previously logged user

Launchpad Details: #LP1613109 Oleg - 2016-08-14 20:06:14 +0000

Mask corners

Now that Gala masks corners, greeter should too.

Launchpad Details: #LP1421894 Daniel Fore - 2015-02-14 02:48:52 +0000

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Not possible to activate virtual keyboard to enter password when using a touchscreen...

I prefer to use a touchscreen now that I have one. When logged in all is working fine, but on "lock screen" I must connect a keyboard to enter my psw. I have configured the greeter to display keyboard (keyboard=onboard and virtual keyboard=true and things alike) with no luck. Have also tried to compile an older version of Pantheon greeter and for ex. version 2.0.2 have this functionality so my guess is that it got "lost in translation" from 2.x to 3.x or something? From my point of view this is the missing piece of the puzzle to get rid of my keyboard.

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Implement a compositor [$100]

I'm developing an Onboard theme and colour scheme which makes use of alpha transparency, with the intent of applying it to the pantheon-greeter (based on LightDM). In the process, I've discovered that LightDM does not appear to support alpha transparency.

In order to test this issue, please open a terminal and execute the following:

sudo -i
xhost +SI:localuser:lightdm
su lightdm -s /bin/bash
onscreen-settings

and then proceed to set a high transparency setting for Onscreen's window background (or better yet, tick the 'no background' option under /window/transparency) and reboot your machine. In the ubuntu/pantheon-greeter (both use Onboard), summon the on-screen keyboard from accessibility menu (in the top right hand corner) and behold, opaqueness!

Regards,

Lee Hyde.

P.S.: I am reliably informed that the underlying XEmbed window may itself pose a blocker for implementing transparent themes in LightDM greeters (or in any other circumstance were Onboard is executed in XEmbed mode). I'm told that the XEmbed window background will likely not inherit any alpha transparency and will this show through (it's a light grey a'la you common law garden gtk+ window). I believe that this is a separate issue (as I saw no signs of this light grey background) and will file a big against Onboard (or whom soever it concerns) in due course.

Launchpad Details: #LP1234121 Lee Hyde - 2013-10-02 11:55:50 +0000

Kernel 4.4.0-92-generic segfaults Pantheon-Greeter

On my desktop system, I've done an upgrade of the system, and am running on the elementary-os/daily repo, for the latest packages. A recent update for the kernel from 4.4.0-91-generic, to 4.4.0-92-generic has caused my system to stop loading up Pantheon-Greeter. I'm still able to switch my terminal to another terminal, and check dmesg for error messages, which shows that pantheon-greeter segfault's with error 4 from libc-2.23.so. I can switch to 4.4.0-91-generic, and it'll boot just fine. Attached is the dmesg bootlog from my computer.
boot.log.txt

Can't change volume with keyboard

I can't change volume before being on the pantheon desktop.

Launchpad Details: #LP1185538 Lasne Olivier - 2013-05-29 18:18:40 +0000

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Theme is not applied

Hi there,

I'm running Pantheon DE on Fedora and experiencing an issue with the greeter's styling.
The issue is that when I LightDM runs the greeter its css styles are not picked up. But, when I run the greeter just as an application - everything is fine.
Probably, I missed something in LightDM configuraton.

Login screen does not respect solid color background

When setting the wallpaper as "None", which should be renamed to "Solid Colour" soon, I think, the wallpaper for the login screen remains a picture and not the selected solid colour.

Launchpad Details: #LP1188985 Cameron Norman - 2013-06-08 17:35:26 +0000

Restart and Shut Down do nothing when there's a user logged in

To reproduce just log in, then click on Switch Account in the session indicator to go back to the login screen. Now clicking Shut Down or Restart won't do anything because there's a user logged in.

Launchpad Details: #LP1174117 Mana - 2013-04-29 00:33:33 +0000

can't scrub indicators

In the greeter you can't switch open indicators by hovering like you can with wingpanel proper

Launchpad Details: #LP1536450 Daniel Fore - 2016-01-21 03:12:16 +0000

Integrate Virtualbox/Qemu Guest booting as a desktop environment listing (request)

I had seen this new way to install Chromium OS and "boot" it using LightDM's session select menu, and it made me think of an idea:

What if you were able to boot virtual machines in the same manner? It would simplify the Ubuntu user's life GREATLY if they had easy access to a Windows VM that can synchronize their files to and fro (Guest additions) and not require a reboot to use it. Modern computers have more than enough power to do something like this, and it should be even easier if the system is using a dedicated virtual machine environment rather than a full blown desktop.

This can transform LightDM from being just another login screen to a full-blown glorified host for all of your operating systems and remote logins.

I think this would make using Ubuntu a LOT less of a hassle for the new user who came from Windows :)

Launchpad Details: #LP1077806 Jonathan Alfonso - 2012-11-12 05:58:04 +0000

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Launch initial setup when there are no users on the system

If there are no log-in-able users on the system we need to launch the initial setup utility to create that first user

No CAPS LOCK indication

In the most recent build of the beta, no indication of caps lock being enabled is shown at the log-in or lock screen.

Launchpad Details: #LP1373958 Nathan Lowe - 2014-09-25 14:03:29 +0000

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User icon only draws in top left quadrant of circle on HiDPI displays

I have my desktop running at 2x scale on this laptop's HiDPI display. Everything looks fine except for my user icon, a 256x256 PNG image, on the greeter:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/zigpeevoyejjm7j/elem_greeter_icon.jpg?dl=0

I realize the top panel is not part of the greeter but it draws the same erroneous way there too, seems possibly related:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/0ryn2x4xld8ectq/elem_user_icon.jpg?dl=0