Crashes if no user account shown

[Owen Dunn]

I'm configuring a preseeded automated installation of Ubuntu 12.04. Because in its final state the system will get all its users from the local Active Directory domain I do not have an initial user created, so in my preseed configuration file I have the line:

d-i passwd/make-user boolean false

My organisation's policies prohibit a guest account, so a preseed/late_command edits /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf to include the line:

allow-guest=false

With this arrangement, when lightdm starts at boot time, it starts an X server and displays a black screen with the mouse pointer in. This screen disappears almost immediately. This is repeated 59 times, making switching to another virtual console difficult.

lightdm should behave more sensibly when a local user is not available.

-------------------------------------------
Desired solution:

- If not local user accounts are present on the system, the 'Other' login option should be displayed.

[Robert Ancell (robert-ancell)]

I can confirm that unity greeter fails if no user account is shown.

As a workaround you can set the following in /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf:

[SeatDefaults]
greeter-hide-users=true

as this shows a username entry instead of a user list (which is probably what you want anyway).

[Robert Ancell (robert-ancell)]

Fixed a trivial crash when no user list:
http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~unity-greeter-team/unity-greeter/trunk/revision/331

But there's still an odd entry box shown without text when this occurs. We probably want to show a username entry when the list is empty, and not when there are users. (and make sure to handle user accounts being added removed, e.g. deleting the single user account should switch to a username entry, then adding a new one should return to the list).

[Robert Ancell (robert-ancell)]

Adding design to give feedback on what should happen when no users are available.

[Mark Shuttleworth (sabdfl)]

On 06/03/12 06:55, Robert Ancell wrote:
> Adding design to give feedback on what should happen when no users are
> available.

Really interesting question, and relevant for some work we've been
commissioned to do. John, can we add this to our next conversation?

Mark

[John Lea (johnlea)]

description updated

[Jason Sharp (jsharp)]

I noticed that this priority is set to 'low'....i work in an environment that has 200+ Ubuntu deployments and not one of them has a local user....all user info is pulled from ldap. Machines are deployed without local users

I know there is

greeter-hide-users=true

which will stop the crash, but we don't want to hide users...

I would think that if there is no local user, and guest is turned off that "other" would appear by default without having to add an option

[Mark Shuttleworth (sabdfl)]

We may want to consider a "system first boot" experience in the case
where there are no users, but I haven't given it deep thought.

Mark

[Robert Ancell (robert-ancell)]

This was fixed in Unity Greeter 0.2.5

[Jason Sharp (jsharp)]

I would say this this is partially fixed

Yes, when I have no user, and allow-guest=false, lightdm no longer crashes, and i have the option to put in a user name, but when I log out of the box, that is the only user allowed to login. Even after reboot, this is the only user allowed to login to this machine. Shouldn't I be able to log in as a different ldap user? this was the case in lightdm 1.0.6-0ubuntu1.6

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

The issue described there has been fixed in that update before precise:

unity-greeter (0.2.5-0ubuntu1) precise; urgency=low

  * New upstream release
...
    - Show manual login option when no users available (LP: #952557)

if you still get problems open a new bug please