Configuring auto-login on an OpenSUSE computer in a domain

[Uraniun235]

I want to configure OpenSUSE to autologin to a Windows domain user account, but the built-in helpful GUI tool appears to only support local users for the autologin function. My Google searches ("autologin OpenSUSE windows domain", "linux auto login windows domain") are coming up fruitless. Does anyone have suggestions, or a link to some reading I can do?


("but why?" My boss wants to be able to hand students these laptops, who will then open them up and press a button and not have to change or enter any login information whatsoever. I want to be able to please my boss.)

[Beowulf]

I'm pretty sure it's not possible, simply because that's a ridiculous security paradigm to follow for most uses.

[Spyder]

You could try logging in with a local account and then use a script to authenticate into the domain post login. Would mean having a domain password stored in plain text somewhere on the machine but it doesn't sound like security is the main concern here.

[darkjedi521]

The reason you can't do an automated remote login is the need to store the credentials for the remote server somewhere on the local system. That having been said, it may be possible to work around, though you will most likely not have network credentials, or expose the credentials to curious end users. There are plenty of tricks, depending on the exact goal of the project.

Can you post/PM any more details on what you're specifically trying to accomplish? Ie do you need file/print resources on the domian, basic web browsing, something else?

[Uraniun235]

You could try logging in with a local account and then use a script to authenticate into the domain post login. Would mean having a domain password stored in plain text somewhere on the machine but it doesn't sound like security is the main concern here.

We already have hundreds of Windows computers in computer labs configured to auto-login to a domain account. Individual student accounts have, for as long as I've been here, always been something prefaced with "it would be really nice to have..."

The reason you can't do an automated remote login is the need to store the credentials for the remote server somewhere on the local system. That having been said, it may be possible to work around, though you will most likely not have network credentials, or expose the credentials to curious end users. There are plenty of tricks, depending on the exact goal of the project.

Can you post/PM any more details on what you're specifically trying to accomplish? Ie do you need file/print resources on the domian, basic web browsing, something else?

File/print resources would be excellent to have, although I think web browsing's got the higher priority for this project. The big one is being able to authenticate and access the secured wireless network - I'm able to do these things once I'm logged in as a domain user. I just basically need something that will punch in a username and password automatically when the computer boots.

[darkjedi521]

From what I've read, I think you can do what you want with a local account set to auto-login then. I sent you a PM with some specific questions to your case, but if there's just one generic account for everything, it should be possible to hard code the credentials in the relevant portions of the system config.