16

So I work at a university using active directory, and in my office there are a few computers that I've set up, in Ubuntu 11.10, to log as an AD user.

In order to log in a person just needs to use the "other" user at login and use their university ID and Password. I've installed 12.04LTS on my personal computer, and I see that the "other" option no longer exists.

If I upgrade those computers who need AD login capabilities, will they have them?

2
  • I also join my test machine to the domain with likewise, and in terminal doing "su - <user>" it works fine, but still don't have the "other" in X login.
    – Pipe
    Apr 12, 2012 at 13:08
  • Being new to Ubuntu...I had no idea someone this was turned off default. Thanks for the tip of fixing the issue.
    – user565111
    Jul 5, 2016 at 22:22

4 Answers 4

27

Edit /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf and add the following line :

greeter-show-manual-login=true

Then restart lightdm :

sudo service lightdm restart
3
  • 1
    Works perfectly for me. Sep 17, 2012 at 13:04
  • 6
    For later versions of Ubuntu (14.04) add this line to: /usr/share/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/50-unity-greeter.conf Jul 2, 2015 at 15:40
  • @L.D.James 's solution still works on 18.04.
    – domen
    Jan 21, 2020 at 8:58
7

You can also hide all users so that you enter whatever name you want by editing /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf adding :

greeter-hide-users=true

This is particularly useful if you use NIS or LDAP services.

6

For Ubuntu 16.04 configuration for greeters is taken from the configuration files in the following hierarchy:

  1. /usr/share/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/*.conf
  2. /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/*.conf
  3. /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf

The place to add your configuration changes is the second in the list, provided that there is nothing in the last list file to override the values you wish to change.

So, creating a file /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/50-myconfig.conf and putting in it

[Seat:*]
greeter-hide-users=false
greeter-show-manual-login=true
allow-guest=false
  • First entry hides the list of login users
  • Second entry allows manual user login
  • Third entry disables the guest login account

NOTE: For Ubuntu versions prior to 15.10 replace [Seat:*] with [SeatDefaults]

When changes have been made, restart the lightdm service to have the changes applied.

sudo service lightdm restart

or

sudo systemctl restart lightdm.service

For more information see: Ubuntu LightDM Wiki

1

From the Ubuntu wiki: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LightDM

LightDM configuration is governed by the lightdm.conf file, however it's not suppose to be directly edited, instead use:

lightdm-set-defaults

I found the file at /usr/lib/lightdm/lightdm-set-defaults

At the terminal you would enter:

sudo /usr/lib/lightdm/lightdm-set-defaults -m true

Edit: While this was true temporarily for 12.04, it seems to not be true for any newer release, and editing conf files as otherwise suggested is the correct solution.

3
  • 1
    This utility (lightdm-set-defaults) does not exist on my system, and I can't figure out how to install it. askubuntu.com/questions/251041/… did not help, either. Apr 14, 2014 at 16:10
  • @foobarbecue, check that topic again. It appears things have changed with v14.04, and lightdm-set-defaults has been deprecated. Jun 13, 2014 at 20:20
  • 1
    Not just deprecated, removed, according to askubuntu.com/questions/251041/…
    – armb
    Jan 23, 2015 at 10:17

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