Remove Password Prompt During Wake From Suspend
Imac: I’m trying 9.10 and after I suspended it asked for my password when went back to the computer. How do I disable that feature?
Not that I would recommend it, I can understand the need to turn the password prompt off when returning from suspend. On Ubuntu 9.10, Gnome has that as a setting which can be toggled through the GConf Configuration Editor, gconf-editor, or at the command line with gconftool.
The GUI Way:
The GConf Configuration Editor doesn’t have a visible menu listing. You can launch it by using ALT+F2 to open the Run Application dialog box and type gconf-editor followed by clicking the Run button.
Next, you will need to navigate to the necessary key name through the use of the tree menu on the left of the Configuration Editor. Double-click on apps to expand that part of the tree. Scroll down and double-click on gnome-power-manager. Lastly, single-click on lock to see the corresponding key names and their values appear in the upper-right window. You should see a key named suspend with a checkbox value next to it.
Simply click the checkbox to remove the checkmark. The change is immediate so you only need to close the Configuration Editor. If you want to turn that feature back on, follow the steps again and place a checkmark into the checkbox.
The CLI Way:
From a command line, to turn the feature off, you only need to use the following entry:
gconftool --type Boolean --set /apps/gnome-power-manager/lock/suspend false
To turn it back on, set it to true.
gconftool --type Boolean --set /apps/gnome-power-manager/lock/suspend true
Remember that the password prompt, while annoying at times, can be your last line of defense from letting people access sensitive data. While turning the prompt off makes sense for shared computers such as a media server box, it’s not recommended for personal laptops/desktops.
March 15th, 2010 at 7:48 am
This didn’t seem to work for me… changed this setting the GUI way and the suspended my computer, then turned it back on and it required a password to turn back on. Did I miss something?
March 15th, 2010 at 7:32 pm
I imagine you have the screensaver set to lock the screen when it’s active.
System > Preferences > Screensaver.
At the bottom of the window is a check box with “Lock screen when screensaver is active” next to it. Remove the checkmark.
For some reason they have the screensaver activate when suspending. It seems redundant to me.
June 20th, 2010 at 2:34 am
Worked for me. Thanks for your clear explanation.
June 23rd, 2010 at 6:13 pm
Interesting that the Administrative password is not required to change these settings. It seems to me that could potentially set any computer up for serious security breaches were the perpetrator able to access the computer at the right time. He/she wouldn’t even need a password to do so; just the knowledge.
July 28th, 2010 at 12:50 am
Glenn,
I don’t think these settings apply to all users. So if you don’t have a root password you can at most change this setting inside a user account you can already access anyway.