Skip to content

askmeaboutlinux

Knowledge not shared benefits no one.

  • Home
  • About Ask Me About Linux

Hide list of users on Ubuntu login screen

Geetu R. Vaswani Information, Linux, Security, Ubuntu August 25, 2012November 2, 2019 1 Minute

Normally, the login screen in Ubuntu shows a user list from which you can select one, enter the password and login to the system. Many times, due to security reasons, you may not want to have a list of users displayed on booting into the computer. There is a method to hide the users list on the login screen. You need to edit the lightdm.conf file in the path /etc/lightdm. You will then need to enter a User ID and the password to login to the system. To do so, open up the terminal window and do the following steps:

Start up the terminal on your system, then enter the commands in italics as shown below.

The below creates a backup file of the lightdm.conf file.
$ sudo cp /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf.orig <enter>

If you are comfortable using the vi line editor in linux, the below opens the lightdm.conf file for editing.
$ sudo vi /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf <enter>

Add a line as shown in italics below after “user-session=ubuntu” and save the lightdm.conf file.
greeter-hide-users=true
:wq <enter>

If you do not want to use vi, you can use gedit as follows:
$ sudo gedit /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf <enter>
Add the line:
greeter-hide-users=true

and save the file.

When done, the lightdm.conf file should have the following lines shown in blue which you can view giving the cat command as follows:
$ cat /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf <enter>

[SeatDefaults]
user-session=ubuntu
greeter-hide-users=true
greeter-session=unity-greeter
autologin-user=

Restart and you should find that you are now asked to enter your User ID instead of selecting it from a list.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook

Like this:

Like Loading...

Related

  • Tagged
  • hide user list
  • Linux
  • login
  • security
  • ubuntu
  • user list

Published by Geetu R. Vaswani

View all posts by Geetu R. Vaswani

Published August 25, 2012November 2, 2019

Post navigation

Previous Post Firewall in Ubuntu Linux
Next Post Remove guest login or disable guest login in Ubuntu

@askmeaboutlinux

Tags

adb android android apps android emulator android studio applications Apps apt-get audio boot cross-platform cryptography desktop eclipse email email client encryption error evolution fedora Fedora 15 fedora 16 firefox firmware Gnome Gnome 3 gnucash gnupg GNU Privacy Guard google google drive gpg hardware install installation internet java java GUI java program key pair keyring Linux linuxmint linux mint Linux Shell mobile multimedia network openwrt package Package Manager packages privacy private key program programming public key router security services shell shell prompt software sony xperia zr swing terminal thunderbird ubuntu upgrade virtualbox windows wireless router wordpress XFCE xubuntu
Website Powered by WordPress.com.
  • Follow Following
    • askmeaboutlinux
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • askmeaboutlinux
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Copy shortlink
    • Report this content
    • View post in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
%d bloggers like this: