Re: [gdm-list] Separate username and password fields

[Ludwig Nussel <ludwig nussel suse de>]

Brian Cameron wrote:
> > I've never liked that GDM only shows one field. I have on occasion
> > started to type my username in only to then notice it's coming up in
> > dots because the prompt to the side actually reads Password, but my
> > research indicates that there is no way to configure to GDM to display
> > separate fields for username and password. Which is a shame. Given
> > that having only one field can evidently cause confusion I'd like to
> > ask the developers to consider adding a configuration option to
> > display separate username and password fields. I feel that is much
> > more user friendly than using a single field.
> 
> This usability issue is raised from time-to-time.  Unfortunately, the
> standard for handling authentication is PAM, and GDM also uses PAM.
> While PAM makes it possible to integrate novel authentication mechanisms
> (such as a fingerprint or SmartCard reader), its query/response protocol
> does not support asking multiple questions at the same time.

Actually PAM does support multiple prompts at once. You just need a
module that actually asks for username and password in one
conversation (such as pam_unix2). Years ago I even made proof of
concept patch for GDM:
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gdm-list/2007-February/msg00024.html
IIRC fixing the graphical greeter turned out to require too much
effort back then so I gave up.

cu
Ludwig

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