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I noticed in Ubuntu 11.10, that finally there is possible to log in with guest account already from log in screen. The last step is remaining - how to enable the guest account automatically log in, e.g. when computer starts? This would be very helpful for public computers, e.g. in libraries, schools, universities, student campus etc. This would be workaround for user account deep freeze feature, which is still missing from Ubuntu.

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4 Answers 4

Reset to default
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Edit /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf with your favourite editor like gksu gedit /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf and under the section [SeatDefaults] add

allow-guest=true  
autologin-guest=true  
autologin-user-timeout=0  
autologin-session=lightdm-autologin  
user-session=ubuntu
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  • 1
    @zeroconf: Please mark the question as answered since it worked
    – mfisch
    Dec 5, 2012 at 19:00
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For both Ubuntu 14.10 and Ubuntu 15.10 this is what worked for me:

sudo nano /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf

with the following content

[SeatDefaults]
autologin-guest=true

What did not work for me under Ubuntu 14.10 (Note: this was not tried under Ubuntu 15.10)...

  1. Creating the 50-autoguest.conf file in /usr/share/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/
  2. Creating the 50-autoguest.conf file in /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/
  3. Having the setting allow-guest=true in the settings file (that disabled Guest session altogether).

According to the LightDM wiki entry, the right place to put such modifications is in

/etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf
/etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/*

The following path is for the system-provided configuration only

/usr/share/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/

Source: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LightDM

The way I solved this was 'brute force'. I knew that I could set an auto-login using a regular account in Ubuntu 14.10 so I did that in Settings. Then I looked in the three locations I knew of where the auto-login preference was stored and, voila, the file /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf was created with a single entry for the account that was subject to auto login. Figuring that less is more I commented out the entry (prefixed #) and added only autologin-guest=true and it worked!

PS nano is my preferred command-line text editor. Its simple to use. That said, use whatever is your preferred text editor, e.g. gksu gedit if you prefer a GUI text editor.

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  • @ale.com said: You must enable autologin for one user using graphical interface. ...or find where you need to change something else. I checked every /usr/share/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d file without success.
    – user68186
    Feb 18, 2015 at 22:21
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The lightdm config file location has changed in Ubuntu 14.04. To accomplish the same you need to create a new file /usr/share/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/50-auto-guest.conf, for example by running

gksu gedit /usr/share/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/50-auto-guest.conf

and putting in this content:

[SeatDefaults]
allow-guest=true  
autologin-guest=true  
autologin-user-timeout=0  
autologin-session=lightdm-autologin  
user-session=ubuntu
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1
  • I had to change the options in /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf since this file has the highest priority and the settings were set there.
    – bara
    Sep 29, 2014 at 18:14
0

Solution suggested by JumpingJuniper works for me too, but only following all of his path.

before adding

autologin-guest=true

to

sudo vi /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf

you must enable autologin for one user using graphical interface. ...or find where you need to change something else. I checked every /usr/share/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d file without success

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