setting preferences globally?

[francis keyes]

Hi All,

I work at an organization with 4 Fedora 7 machines that are Desktop
computers shared among over 100 people.  The problem is that NOBODY
remembers to log out when they are done with a particular machine.  This
leaves the screen locked and the next user has to choose "switch user" to
log in, which ends up causing various problems when 30 people are logged
into a machine but only one is actually using it.

My question is:  as root, is there a way that I can set every user's screen
saver preferences to NOT lock the screen?

This would at least let people log out of an open session that some
inconsiderate/careless person has walked away from.

Thanks!

[Todd Denniston]

francis keyes wrote, On 01/28/2008 11:54 AM:
> Hi All,
>
> I work at an organization with 4 Fedora 7 machines that are Desktop
> computers shared among over 100 people.  The problem is that NOBODY
> remembers to log out when they are done with a particular machine.  This
> leaves the screen locked and the next user has to choose "switch user" to
> log in, which ends up causing various problems when 30 people are logged
> into a machine but only one is actually using it.
>
> My question is:  as root, is there a way that I can set every user's screen
> saver preferences to NOT lock the screen?

sort of...
assuming gdm is in use, make sure X accepts CTRL-ALT-Backspace.
or a cron that issues a machine reboot at 0001.

these are kind of rough on the "inconsiderate/careless" person's 
application/unsaved data, but did they not ask for it?
i.e., use with appropriate care.

<OK, so it is a work around to the problem of the OP instead of an answer, but 
I think it is better than not locking the screen>
> This would at least let people log out of an open session that some
> inconsiderate/careless person has walked away from.
>
> Thanks!

[Rex Dieter]

francis keyes wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> I work at an organization with 4 Fedora 7 machines that are Desktop
> computers shared among over 100 people.

...>
> My question is:  as root, is there a way that I can set every user's
> screen saver preferences to NOT lock the screen?

Depends on your Desktop Environment.  For example, KDE includes a handy tool
called kiosktool, that can make many prefs preset as a site admin would
like.  I'm pretty sure Gnome has similar functionality (somewhere).

-- Rex

[Rahul Sundaram]

Rex Dieter wrote:
> francis keyes wrote:
> > Hi All,
> >
> > I work at an organization with 4 Fedora 7 machines that are Desktop
> > computers shared among over 100 people.
>
> ...>
> > My question is:  as root, is there a way that I can set every user's
> > screen saver preferences to NOT lock the screen?
>
> Depends on your Desktop Environment.  For example, KDE includes a handy tool
> called kiosktool, that can make many prefs preset as a site admin would
> like.  I'm pretty sure Gnome has similar functionality (somewhere).

Sabayon and Pessulus in GNOME would serve a similar purpose and are 
available in the Fedora repository.

http://www.gnome.org/projects/sabayon/
http://live.gnome.org/Pessulus

Rahul

[Tom Weniger]

2008/1/28 francis keyes :
> Hi All,
>
> My question is:  as root, is there a way that I can set every user's screen
> saver preferences to NOT lock the screen?
>
> This would at least let people log out of an open session that some
> inconsiderate/careless person has walked away from.
>
> Thanks!

Greetings,

Have you tried using the gnome sabayon? Let me know if this helps
solve the problem.

[francis keyes]

Hi All,

Thanks for responses.   Sabayon looks like the perfect tool but so far it
doesn't work.
I'll let you know if i get it working.

On Jan 28, 2008 2:25 PM, Tom Weniger  wrote:
> 2008/1/28 francis keyes :
> > Hi All,
> >
> > My question is:  as root, is there a way that I can set every user's
>
> screen
> > saver preferences to NOT lock the screen?
> >
> > This would at least let people log out of an open session that some
> > inconsiderate/careless person has walked away from.
> >
> > Thanks!
>
> Greetings,
>
> Have you tried using the gnome sabayon? Let me know if this helps
> solve the problem.
>
> --
> Virtually,
> Tom Weniger
>
> --
> fedora-list mailing list
> [e-mail]
> To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list

[Tim]

On Mon, 2008-01-28 at 12:54 -0400, francis keyes wrote:
> The problem is that NOBODY remembers to log out when they are done
> with a particular machine.

Dare I say:  Install a screensaver that crashes X when the screensaver
kicks in.  That'll log them out automatically.  ;-)

I'd imagine that one of the tutorials for setting up internet cafes
would have some hints about automatic timeouts and logouts, using a less
brutal approach.  It has to be a common problem.

[Ian Chapman]

francis keyes wrote:
> My question is:  as root, is there a way that I can set every user's 
> screen saver preferences to NOT lock the screen?

If the desktop is KDE, you can do the following:

Edit the following file:

/usr/share/kde-settings/kde-profile/default/share/config/kdesktoprc

The particular thing of interest is the following stanza:

[ScreenSaver]
Enabled=true
Lock=true
LockGrace=120000
Priority=19
Saver=KRandom.desktop
Timeout=1800

You can set Lock=false

You should also be able to use the KDE immutable option next to the 
stanza name so that users cannot override these settings, eg.

[ScreenSaver] [$i]

Note though, that an rpm update may obliterate your changes, so you 
could create your own kde profile and add it in /etc/kderc which is how 
I've done similar things for our computer labs.

[francis keyes]

Hi All,

We're using Gnome.  Sabayon, sadly, is a good idea but didn't work.
I solved the problem of setting Gnome preferences globally by doing the
following:

1.  create a new user testuser and set up that user's Gnome profile the way
I want it.
2.  chmod -R a+rwx /home/testuser/.gconf*
3.  mkdir /UNIVERSAL_CONFIGS
4.  cp -r /home/testuser/.gconf* /UNIVERSAL_CONFIGS
5.  rm -rf /home/*/.gconf*
6.  create a little shell script called cpmult to copy the new config files
to everyone's home directory:

#!/bin/sh
for i in $(ls /home);
do cp -rfpv /UNIVERSAL_CONFIGS/.gconf* /home/$i;
done;

This is pretty round-about but it worked.  I'm really surprised Gnome
doesn't have this functionality built in.

On Tue, Jan 29, 2008 at 2:28 PM, Ian Chapman 
wrote:
> francis keyes wrote:
> > My question is:  as root, is there a way that I can set every user's
> > screen saver preferences to NOT lock the screen?
>
> If the desktop is KDE, you can do the following:
>
> Edit the following file:
>
> /usr/share/kde-settings/kde-profile/default/share/config/kdesktoprc
>
> The particular thing of interest is the following stanza:
>
> [ScreenSaver]
> Enabled=true
> Lock=true
> LockGrace=120000
> Priority=19
> Saver=KRandom.desktop
> Timeout=1800
>
> You can set Lock=false
>
> You should also be able to use the KDE immutable option next to the
> stanza name so that users cannot override these settings, eg.
>
> [ScreenSaver] [$i]
>
> Note though, that an rpm update may obliterate your changes, so you
> could create your own kde profile and add it in /etc/kderc which is how
> I've done similar things for our computer labs.
>
> --
> Ian Chapman.
>
> --
> fedora-list mailing list
> [e-mail]
> To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list

[Tim]

On Thu, 2008-01-31 at 13:30 -0400, francis keyes wrote:
> I solved the problem of setting Gnome preferences globally by doing
> the following:
> create a new user testuser and set up that user's Gnome profile
>
> the way I want it.
> 2.  chmod -R a+rwx /home/testuser/.gconf*
> 3.  mkdir /UNIVERSAL_CONFIGS
> 4.  cp -r /home/testuser/.gconf* /UNIVERSAL_CONFIGS
> 5.  rm -rf /home/*/.gconf*
> 6.  create a little shell script called cpmult to copy the new config
> files to everyone's home directory:
>
> #!/bin/sh
> for i in $(ls /home); 
> do cp -rfpv /UNIVERSAL_CONFIGS/.gconf* /home/$i; 
> done;
>
> This is pretty round-about but it worked.  I'm really surprised Gnome
> doesn't have this functionality built in.

For creating accounts with settings you want, preset, there's
the /etc/skel/ directory (skeleton files to build in each new
userspace).  You'd make your default user config, then copy it into
there.

But for modifying existing accounts, you'd need to do something else.
Like you've done, or a tool existing already for doing the same thing.