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

Lamar Owen lowen at pari.edu
Thu Jan 20 16:29:13 UTC 2011


On Thursday, January 20, 2011 03:54:45 am Rudi Ahlers wrote:
> Yup, and it totally defeats the purpose of what the OP actually wanted
> todo. Imagine your account being busy with your year-end books, and
> has to run to the toilet (she is a bit sick) now you come and press
> CTRL+ALT+Bksp and loose everything she's done. And, if she had a lot
> of invoices and statements already processed then she may need to redo
> it. Now, how do you explain to your boss that you just cost him
> another day with an expensive accountant because you're too ignorant
> to properly address the issue?

An IT admin should not be accessing the accountant's PC without the accountant or another financial person present, for control reasons (control in the financial, SCI, and auditing sense).  There are significant regulatory compliance issues with your specific example.... :-) Just because it's company data doesn't mean it's open season for any IT admin to access.  This is likely why CTRL-ALT-BACKSPACE is off by default, too.

If the PC is another IT admin's PC, that's a different story. But even then there are significant accountability issues, as when workstations are left unlocked anyone can come up and then do something as that user.

I understand what the OP wants to do, but honestly I think it's a bad idea to do it.  If the setting is changed it should be on a per-user basis, since at that point the user can know about it, and there is a degree of informed consent there. 

There may be a knob to do it, but I think there could be liability issues for tweaking that knob, which essentially changes all user's preferences without their informed consent.  I know that I would not do this in my environment, because I don't want that liability.  

But it definitely depends upon your specific environment.  And, yes, users need to log out, and many places do fairly harsh discipline if a workstation isn't either locked or logged out in the user's absence.  



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