Re: Biometric Login

[Bob Doolittle <Robert Doolittle Sun COM>]

PLEASE do this via PAM, that's what it's designed for.
Then it will work for any greeter, not just gdm (wonderful
though we feel it is :-).

This is how the commercial companies do it - AC Technology
(who have fingerprint scanners) and Schlumberger/ActiveCard (for
smartcards).

PAM also has several advantages from a development perspective:
- small and self-contained - your authentication code stands alone in
  its own module.  This makes it quick to get started (vs learning the
  gdm code) and less issues with side-effects.
- easy to test (just write a dummy PAM client and configure /etc/pam.d
  appropriately)

PAM has its limitations - you have to live within the GUI bounds
provided by the PAM client (e.g. gdm), but if you can live with primarily
textual prompts, displayed by the GUI, the benefits far outweigh the
limitations.

We should avoid the temptation to stuff more gratuitous stuff into gdm,
it's rather "feature rich" as it is ;-).  Modular is better, 
particularly when
that enhances interoperability of your work.

Good luck,
  Bob

Mike Ross wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I'm interested in starting a project to allow users to login using a
> Biometric scanner. Most probably this will be a fingerprint scanner. Is
> anyone already working on something similar?
>
> I have downloaded the latest gdm source and began to trawl through it,
> but it's a bit slow going. Can anyone point me towards any docs on it or
> give me a brief overview of how gdm works?
>
> Regards,
>
> Mike Ross
>
>
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