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

Thu Jan 20 13:01:50 UTC 2011
John Hodrien <J.H.Hodrien at leeds.ac.uk>

On Thu, 20 Jan 2011, Sorin Srbu wrote:

>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: centos-bounces at centos.org [mailto:centos-bounces at centos.org] On
>> Behalf Of Tom H
>> Sent: Thursday, January 20, 2011 1:03 PM
>> To: CentOS mailing list
>> Subject: Re: [CentOS] How to disable screen locking system-wide?
>>
>>
>> In our environment, leaving your desk without locking your
>> computer/screen is punished with a disciplinary hearing and three such
>> hearings result in dismissal. Having one person using another's
>> account is considered a security risk.
>
> Sounds kinda' harsh. May I ask what industry this is in?
>
>
>> I don't know the exact path but you can use gconftool-2 (or
>> gconf-editor as a GUI) to set the screensaver not to lock (and mimick
>> doing so by changing the screensaver preferences in
>> "System-Preferences-Screensaver").
>
> That's a per-user setting you describe, right?

No, you can make that work for all users with gconf-editor by editing the
right file.  My previously suggested solution just does that in one go without
a gui:

gconftool-2 --direct \
--config-source xml:readwrite:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.mandatory --type bool \
--set /apps/gnome-screensaver/lock_enabled false

That makes it mandatory, so it can't be overridden, and will affect all users.
Only fixes it for gnome, I don't know what the equivalent fix is for KDE.  You
need to take other steps to enforce it in the other direction, as killall
gnome-screensaver would defeat it.

jh