Re: Locking screen

[Dan Mahoney, System Admin]

On Mon, 27 Jun 2005, Will Maier wrote:

Well, again, the thought of using /bin/true as a "locker" comes up (this 
is settable as an an environment variable, $LOCKPRG, but apparently not 
as a builtin, that way there would be only one prompt.

The unusual thing that the manpage mentions is that apparently a builtin 
will be used if lock cannot be found.  I think this is the case under 
FreeBSD, as nothing like "lock" shows in PS while the screen is locked, 
and the prompts output by "lock" don't match the ones I see in screen.

Anyway, yes I could modify a screen locker util to read my password from 
.screenrc.  This is ONE of two problems I am trying to address.

1) The double password issue.  Annoying, but no risk.

2) On failure to enter the "screen password", the system drops you *BACK 
AT A PROMPT*, now, given at this point someone's already proved they know 
my login password here, so I mean it's not a sign of weakness, but how 
hard would it be to have screen JUST KEEP PROMPTING, FOREVER.

Note, #2 is only a problem because of the thought of setting LOCKPRG to 
true or something to fix problem #1.

I guess it's a bit of a misnomer that I'm not unlocking an attached 
session, I'm actually unlocking screen which will then restore a detached 
session on its own and failing that, drop me at a prompt.

I guess what would be neatest is some sort of "kill parent shell on exit" 
function.



> On Mon, Jun 27, 2005 at 08:25:01PM -0400, Dan Mahoney, System Admin wrote:
> > It was my assumption that the "password" is not called on an unlock, just
> > on a reattach.  Is there a way to have it use a single password?  (I don't
> > care if there are two different passwords, one for unlock and one for
> > reattach).
>
> It seems that screen considers these events one and the same -- the manual on
> lockscreen:
>
> "Meanwhile processes in the windows may continue, as the windows are in the
> `detached' state."
>
> A locked screen is, essentially, a detached screen, hence the double prompt.
> That said, could you not write/modify a screen locker to read the crypted
> password in your screenrc (instead of /etc/passwd)? This would mean one password
> (although there still would be two prompts).
>
>
> Will Maier

--

"This Is Not Goodbye!"

-DM, August 11th 2001, 10 PMish Chicago Time

--------Dan Mahoney--------
Techie,  Sysadmin,  WebGeek
Gushi on efnet/undernet IRC
ICQ: 13735144   AIM: LarpGM
Site:  http://www.gushi.org
---------------------------