HowTo: Create a Passwordless / Guest Login (Simple Method)

[aoakley]

I've had the same problem as balance07 - that is, when I try to switch user into the password-less account, the account cannot be unlocked. Has anyone solved that problem?

I am also getting this problem.

To reproduce:

* Add a new desktop user called guest
* Change the encrypted password for guest in /etc/passwd to:
U6aMy0wojraho
* Log in as Guest with no password (just press return for password)
* Use the user session switcher to switch to your original account
* Use the user session switcher again to switch back to the Guest account
* Guest account session is locked and cannot be unlocked- pressing return for password is rejected.

At the moment, the only way to unlock the guest account is pretty drastic, such as restarting GDM, which logs out ALL desktop sessions and restarts X, clearly not a good solution.

Any help much appreciated, thanks.

[Craftkiller]

THANKYOU, this solved my problem with getting my minimyth frontend to connect to my ubuntu backend for remote ssh execution, you are a god!

[dls156]

Aysiu,

VERY NICE! I'm fairly new to Linux and would have never thought of that (even though I just used the live CD to put Ubuntu on my first box a couple days ago). I was trying to figure out a way to do this so my two little ones could log on and not have to enter a complex (or any) password. This worked like a champ!

The only other thing I would throw out here for newb's like me is to modify the folder permissions of any other home folders that you want to keep private (no viewing) so your guest's aren't rummaging around where they don't need to be. Thanks again Aysiu!

[dummyhead3]

But, now I only have to hit <enter> in the logon screen.
Given this, Isn't there a method to skip this useless logon screen ?

Indeed, in System>Administration>Login screen>Security tab>check enable automatic login

Or something like that (my ubuntu is in spanish

[o-gforce]

I love it. Thanks

[TiGR]

* Log in as Guest with no password (just press return for password)
* Use the user session switcher to switch to your original account
* Use the user session switcher again to switch back to the Guest account
* Guest account session is locked and cannot be unlocked- pressing return for password is rejected.

Don't use session switcher, use hotkeys instead (alt+ctrl+f7/f8/f9/whatever).

[dany linuxnoob]

I did something stupid and now i cant log into my main account...

I think i erased or added a ":" at the end of the line containing the code of my own password... or a space or something. Help???

[aysiu]

Boot into recovery mode, drop to a root shell, and then type

nano -B /etc/shadow

When you're done fixing the file, save (Control-X, Y, Enter) and then type

exit

[Penguin Guy]

Why is this so dangerous? Surely a quick cp /etc/shadow /etc/shadow.backup would do the trick? Then if something went wrong you could easily boot from a live CD and do mv /etc/shadow.backup /etc/shadow. Please correct me if I'm wrong. Also is it okay to use any text editor you want or is there a specific reason for using Nano?

[aysiu]

Why is this so dangerous? Surely a quick cp /etc/shadow /etc/shadow.backup would do the trick? Then if something went wrong you could easily boot from a live CD and do mv /etc/shadow.backup /etc/shadow. Please correct me if I'm wrong. Also is it okay to use any text editor you want or is there a specific reason for using Nano?

It isn't dangerous for you. It's only dangerous if you don't know what you're doing. Clearly you do know what you're doing.

And I chose nano, because that works for Ubuntu, Kubuntu, and Xubuntu. It's okay to use any text editor.