gdm doesn't display contents of /etc/nologin

[Jonathan Reed]

Binary package hint: gdm

When logins are disabled by the presence of /etc/nologin, GDM simply responds with "Authentication failure" after the username is entered. While what it says is technically true, this is a terrible user experience. Ideally, it should display the contents of /etc/nologin. Failing that, it should at least say "Logins are disabled".

The username list is disabled via gconf (/apps/gdm/simple-greeter/disable_user_list true), so I haven't tested the behavior if the username list is enabled.

Steps to reproduce:
1) Create /etc/nologin
2) Type a username at the GDM login screen
3) Observe that it says "Authentication failure"

Relevant info:
# lsb_release -sd
Ubuntu 10.04 LTS
# apt-cache policy gdm
gdm:
  Installed: 2.30.2.is.2.30.0-0ubuntu2
  Candidate: 2.30.2.is.2.30.0-0ubuntu2
  Version table:
 *** 2.30.2.is.2.30.0-0ubuntu2 0
        500 http://mirrors.mit.edu/ubuntu/ lucid-updates/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     2.30.0-0ubuntu5 0
        500 http://mirrors.mit.edu/ubuntu/ lucid/main Packages

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for your bug report. The issue is an upstream one and it would be nice if somebody having it could send the bug the to the people writting the software (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/Upstream/GNOME)

[Pedro Villavicencio (pedro)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. The issue that you reported is one that should be reproducible with the live environment of the Desktop CD of the development release - Oneiric Ocelot. It would help us greatly if you could test with it so we can work on getting it fixed in the next release of Ubuntu. You can find out more about the development release at http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/ . Thanks again and we appreciate your help.

[Jonathan Reed (jdreed)]

The bug still occurs with gdm 3.0.4-0ubuntu8 in Oneiric. I'll note that _lightdm_ manages to get this right.