Re: Face recognition in GDM ...

[Bob Doolittle <Robert Doolittle Sun COM>]

Hi Jose,

Just a note that the right way to do any kind of
biometric authentication is through the use of the
Pluggable Authentication Module framework (PAM).
GDM will work with PAM, by calling
pam_authenticate().  You can write a PAM module
that implements pam_sm_authenticate(), and put
whatever fun stuff you want into it, and then
create a PAM stack in pam.conf that either uses
this module in isolation for gdm or combine it
with a module that acquires a password or uses
a smartcard or does something else useful.

Do not consider modifying GDM code directly
for this purpose, a PAM module would be much
more generally useful (for instance it could be used
to unlock a screen-lock program as well as log in).

It's easier to test, too.  You can write a very simple
PAM client that calls pam_authenticate and debug
your code outside of the GDM framework, then
drop it in by configuring pam.conf when it's ready.

Regards,
  Bob

José Miguel Buenaposada Biencinto wrote:

> Hi to all GDM developers,
>
> I'm a researcher in Computer Vision and I'd like to add some sort of 
> face recognition
> sytem to the Linux login. The idea is to use real-time face 
> recognition throught a video
> camera to select the right user's name from a little database 
> containing an image of
> each user. The user, of course, will have to type the password but not 
> the login name
> (for extra security). I'm thinking in implementing one of the state of 
> the art face detectors
> and face recognition algorithms (as it will not be the main user's 
> identification method,
> as the passwd will remain in place, it has not to be very sofisticated).
>
> The idea is to be developed within a master thesis of one of our 
> students. What
> I'd like to know, before even look for a student to do it, is what do 
> you think
> (GDM developer) will be the best way to modify the GDM code?, the 
> place in the
> code to loook for? what to modify with the minimum impact in 
> stability? What version
> of the code is best to start? And what ever do you think will be 
> interesting ...
> I have not even taken a look into the GDM code yet.
>
> I think it will be very cool to have such a thing as face recogtion in 
> the linux login
>
> Best regards.
> JM.