no way to require fprint OR password, which means no sudo over SSH/NX

[Kevin Milner]

In Ubuntu 11.04 (and 10.10), 64 bit, I've been quite frustrated by not being able to configure pam and fprint to have the fingerprint be optional. I used to use thinkfinger, which would say "enter password or scan finger", and you could do either. With fprint, you are asked to scan your finger, and then if this fails, you can revert to your password. This is fine for normal desktop use, but when using SSH or NX to login remotely, you suddenly can't perform any administrative tasks. Is it possible to configure fprint as an option, or maybe some way to tell it to stop waiting for a fingerprint scan when logged in remotely?

Thanks!

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Till W. (tillw.)]

Problem also occurs with 12.04. I agree that its quite annoying if you want to use sudo from within a (remote) SSH session.
The only workaround I'm aware of is to wait for the fprint timeout and then enter your password.

user@host:~$ sudo ls
Scan ... finger on UPEK Eikon 2
Fingerprint verification error -22
[sudo] password for user:

Unfortunately, the timeout is quite long (approx. 1 minute) and I couldn't find a way to configure it.

[Falco Weigend (neovandeen)]

This issue still exists with 15.04. If you are lazy and only want to type the password, it still requires your finger to authenticate. Even if the fingerscan is invalid, but the password was correct.