Bug 329281 - /etc/X11/prefdm doesn't allow enterprise customization
Summary: /etc/X11/prefdm doesn't allow enterprise customization
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED UPSTREAM
Alias: None
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5
Classification: Red Hat
Component: initscripts
Version: 5.0
Hardware: All
OS: Linux
low
low
Target Milestone: ---
: ---
Assignee: initscripts Maintenance Team
QA Contact: Brock Organ
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2007-10-12 11:08 UTC by Juha Tuomala
Modified: 2009-03-17 16:08 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2009-03-17 16:08:58 UTC
Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)

Description Juha Tuomala 2007-10-12 11:08:26 UTC
Description of problem:

As described in:

  http://enterprise.kde.org/articles/korporatedesktop2.php

KDEDIRS variable allows flexible way to configure and customize
all KDE software. When using kdm that starts the 
kdm_greet, those environment variables need to be passed
somehow to it. 

Now it gets tricky as kdm itself is not linked against 
kde libraries and by default, it doesn't pass environment
variables to kdm if not explicitly told in 
/usr/share/config/kdm/kdmrc with

  ExportList=KDEDIR,KDEDIRS

which is commented out by default. So, kdmrc would
allow passing it if we could first customize it. kdm 
allows a -config cli option, but there is no way to set it
without modifying the /etc/X11/prefdm.

KDEDIRS environment itself would be easily defined in 
/etc/security/pam_env.conf and /etc/pam.d/kdm but that
does not solve the problem that there is no way to set
customized kdmrc file without modifying shipped rpm packages.

Possible solution could be to uncomment the ExportList 
from shipped kdebase package. But I think it would also
be good to allow customize other kdmrc options from 
/etc/sysconfig/desktop file by changing the the line

  preferred=/usr/bin/kdm

to 

  preferred="/usr/bin/kdm $KDMOPTIONS"


allowing to set up debugging etc from /etc/sysconfig/desktop
file. I know that there can be more than one Theme under /usr
but I'd rather keep the whole stuff under KDEDIRS search path
as it allows centralized location whole org stuff.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):

  initscripts-8.45.14.EL-1
  kdebase-3.5.4

How reproducible:

  Always.
  

Expected results:

  Flexible use of KDEDIRS for whole KDE.

Additional info:

If someone knows better way to customize kdm_greet screen,
please, share your ideas. 

I also noticed that prefdm is flagged as c (configuration file)
and thus it would be okay to modify it, but I rather place my
configuration to files that are not shipped by upstream to
avoid .rpmnew files.

Comment 1 Bill Nottingham 2009-03-17 16:08:58 UTC
Ugh, sorry about the delay.

I suspect the best way to do this is to have KDM have better mechanisms for customization like this. That would need tackled upstream, and isn't really practical to change in RHEL. Closing as 'UPSTREAM', as it's not a specific feature we'd add.

In the meantime, you should be able to just set DISPLAYMANAGER in /etc/sysconfig/desktop to a custom commandline to exec KDM in whatever fashion you need.


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