Re: gscreensaver :: a bit of a mockup

[Sean Middleditch <elanthis awesomeplay com>]

On Tue, 2004-05-04 at 14:08, Shahms King wrote:
> On Tue, 2004-05-04 at 10:39, Sean Middleditch wrote:
> > On Tue, 2004-05-04 at 13:19, Davyd Madeley wrote:
> 
> > > How does gdm handle more non-standard auth methods?
> > 
> > I'm fairly sure it works using the standard PAM calls.  PAM will kick
> > back a challenge ("Password:") and GDM asks the user for it.  This is
> > why GDM doesn't have the username and password on the same screen, but
> > instead only shows the password entry after entering the username: PAM
> > doesn't send the first challenge until after its given a username. 
> > Altho modules do have the ability to request multiple inputs at once,
> > there isn't a guarantee that they will actually do so.  (Though it would
> > be nice if they did, as login managers and such could then more
> > consistently provide single dialogs for authentication.)
> 
> This is what GDM does, however, it is currently rather kludgy in how it
> does it.  It actually checks for the string 'Password:' coming from PAM
> as a 'hidden' prompt.  In other words, if you put say, pam_l33t.so in
> your stack and get a 'P455w0rd:' prompt, GDM will have no idea what to
> do with it. (Or this was the case the last time I checked the code)

Ugh.  You mean it will display nothing at all and/or fail to operate? 
That's pretty damn dumb.  I do know that GDM would have to check the
messages for translations, since wonderful ol' PAM doesn't do that for
you.  (So projects like GDM, KDM, etc have to duplicate translations for
every PAM module in use; yay.)

-- 
Sean Middleditch <elanthis awesomeplay com>
AwesomePlay Productions, Inc.