[CentOS] How to disable screen locking system-wide?

Thu Jan 20 15:11:17 UTC 2011
Mathieu Baudier <mbaudier at argeo.org>

> By default, CentOS v5 requires a user's password when the system wakes
> up from the screensaver.  This can be disabled by each user, but how
> can I disable this system-wide?  Many of my users forget to do this,
> which results in workstations being locked up.

Instead of removing the lock on your workstations (big security risk
as others have mentioned), why not rather activate the 'user switch'
button?

If you really need to access a workstation, you can then log in as
another user (e.g. admin user) and then do what you want (which may
involve killing the guilty session).

In gconf-editor, you find this option under:
/apps/gnome-screensaver/user_switch_enabled

You can then probably apply it system-wide using recommendations of
this thread (I haven't tested it).

I quickly scanned through the thread, so maybe somebody suggested that
already, sorry for the repeat in that case.

A bit OT, but something related that I discovered recently: you can
explicitly start the screensaver (and thus the lock) with Ctrl+Alt+L
(instead of looking for the button in the GNOME menu).