Remote automatic login as different users

[Ole Tange <tange tange dk>]

Problem:

I have a bunch of X-terminals that are placed in different locations. The
users of these terminals are dumb. Each X-terminal is used by only one
user. The X-terminal is named username.domain.dk. I can get GDM to run on
the X-terminal and login with username+password.

I would like for the users to be automatically logged in when they turn on
their X-terminal without doing anything. The username to log in as can be
taken from the name of the X-terminal.


Possible solution:

With a minor extension to GDM it should be possible to solve this. E.g.
like this:

  sub is_magic($username) {
    if shell of $username == "/magiclogin/bin/bash"
    then is_magic=true
    else is_magic=false
  }

  $username = $DISPLAY without ".domain.dk:0.0"
  if(is_magic($username)) {
    TimedLogin = $username
    AllowRemoteAutoLogin = true
    AutomaticLoginEnable = true
    TimedLoginEnable = true
  }

Maybe there already is a solution to this (PAM?).

I have looked at AutomaticLoginEnable, AutomaticLogin, TimedLoginEnable,
TimedLogin, TimedLoginDelay, AllowRemoteAutoLogin. But it seems these only
allow for one user and not for different users for different displays.

As is mentioned in the manual AllowRemoteAutoLogin can make a system quite
insecure. Therefore I would love to have the small security that user foo
can only login without password from workstation foo.domain.dk.


/Ole
-- 
http://ole.tange.dk