8/12/2017 GDM - Debian Wiki
Translation(s): English - Franais - Italiano
GDM is the GNOME Display Manager, a graphical login program that uses
the X Window System.
Contents
1. Controlling the GDM daemon
1. systemd
2. Customizing the GDM appearance
3. Removing autologin in gdm3 and getting more verbose output in GDM
4. See also
In addition to being a GUI alternative to the console login prompt, GDM has
the following advantages:
it pre-loads the X Window System (though this can be a disadvantage for
servers)
users can select various desktop environments and windows managers
on a per-login basis
assistance for users with disabilities
per-login regional settings and keyboard layout
consistent look and feel of other GTK/GNOME-themed applications
all other functionalities of XDM, including XDMCP support for managing
remote displays
By default, the greeter is run as an unprivileged user and logging in as root
is forbidden.
Controlling the GDM daemon
To temporarily stop the gdm service, you can run the following command as
root:
#invoke-rc.d gdm3 stop
Other available options include: start, restart, reload and
force-reload. For more information about general daemon management,
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8/12/2017 GDM - Debian Wiki
see Daemon.
systemd
To use systemd commands for controlling gdm.
Temporarily stop gdm.
# systemctl stop gdm
See status of gdm
# systemctl status gdm
Start gdm
# systemctl start gdm
Disable gdm
This will prevent gdm from loading on boot and login is via console.
# systemctl set-default multi-user.target
Using this method, gdm can still be started manually with
systemctlstartgdm
Check the systemd default with
# systemctl get-default
Usually this will be graphical.target and can be reverted with
systemctlset-defaultgraphical.target
Customizing the GDM appearance
https://wiki.debian.org/GDM 2/5
8/12/2017 GDM - Debian Wiki
GDM v3.0+ allows for some basic customization, such as changing the logo
icon, display background, and GTK theme. To do so:
1. Edit /etc/gdm3/greeter.dconf-defaults as root
2. Uncomment and/or modify the desired settings
3. Save and close the editor
4. Finally, run as root: dpkg-reconfiguregdm3
The command 'dpkg-reconfiguregdm3' will cause gdm to reload its
configuration upon the next logout or reboot.
Note: When changing the background image, the target file must be world-
readable.
Removing autologin in gdm3 and getting more
verbose output in GDM
This is with respect to GDM3 as it's known in GNOME 3 and above.
$ dpkg -S /etc/gdm3/daemon.conf
gdm3: /etc/gdm3/daemon.conf
This is just to have an idea of the ownership of the file.
Now the file would look something like this :-
$ cat /etc/gdm3/daemon.conf
# GDM configuration storage
#
# See /usr/share/gdm/gdm.schemas for a list of available options.
[daemon]
# Enabling automatic login
AutomaticLoginEnable=true
AutomaticLogin=$USERNAME
# Enabling timed login
# TimedLoginEnable = true
# TimedLogin = user1
# TimedLoginDelay = 10
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# Reserving more VTs for test consoles (default is 7)
# FirstVT = 9
[security]
[xdmcp]
[greeter]
# Only include selected logins in the greeter
# IncludeAll = false
# Include = user1,user2
[chooser]
[debug]
# More verbose logs
# Additionally lets the X server dump core if it crashes
Enable = false
Now at times if you remove the user you just cannot go into the DE esp. if
only a user is automatically logged in. This is and should be a bug but that's
another tale. Anyways the way to fix it is simple.
$ cat /etc/gdm3/daemon.conf
# GDM configuration storage
#
# See /usr/share/gdm/gdm.schemas for a list of available options.
[daemon]
# Enabling automatic login
AutomaticLoginEnable=false
# Enabling timed login
# TimedLoginEnable = true
# TimedLogin = user1
# TimedLoginDelay = 10
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# Reserving more VTs for test consoles (default is 7)
# FirstVT = 9
[security]
[xdmcp]
[greeter]
# Only include selected logins in the greeter
# IncludeAll = false
# Include = user1,user2
[chooser]
[debug]
# More verbose logs
# Additionally lets the X server dump core if it crashes
Enable = true
I just added the bits which should help us in case anything does go wrong.
See also
Gnome
DisplayManager
http://www.gnome.org/projects/gdm/
http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gdm-list
CategoryBootProcess
https://wiki.debian.org/GDM 5/5
