Technology Tales

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Removing the Guest Account Entry from Ubuntu 11.10 and Linux Mint 12 Login Screens

2nd December 2011

Another feature of Ubuntu 11.10 and Linux Mint 12 is the appearance of a Guest Account entry on their login screens. Windows has had this feature for a while now but it is easy to turn it off if you know where to look. Somehow, Ubuntu and Linux Mint haven’t made it obvious as it could be. In both cases, you have to edit /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf and add the following line to the bottom of the file:

allow-guest=false

That removes the entry in question and could a little more security. In Ubuntu, there are lines in the file controlling the background image that you have for your login screen. In my experience, Linux Mint stores this in the greeter file referenced in lightdm.conf and that’s unity-greeter in my case though I mostly use GNOME 3 with only the occasional stint using the MATE desktop environment.

Comments:

  • Dirk De Schepper says:
    December 20, 2011 at 4:38 pm

    I can’t believe this. Guest accounts? What year is this, 1995? How can a security hole like this exist?

    • John says:
      December 20, 2011 at 9:48 pm

      I cannot see the point of them either so I wonder who thinks that this improves usability. The same applies to logging into a desktop with no password too.

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