Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 37632
xscreensaver, xlock, etc. ignore AltGr Modifier
Last modified: 2007-04-18 12:32:50 EDT
From Bugzilla Helper: User-Agent: Mozilla/4.76 [de] (X11; U; Linux 2.4.3 i686; Nav) On Systems with german Keyboards, all Screenblankers I know (xscreensaver, xlock, KDE Screenblanker) fail to accept passwords containing characters that are typed using the AltGr Key. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 0.Use a System with a german Keyboard, containing "Umlauts" and the AltGr Key 1.Add new User (adduser) 2.Give him a password containing AltGr Keys. On german Keyboard, AltGr is needed e.g. for @ | { } [ ] ~ \ 3. Login new User (graphically, runlevel 5) (choose Gnome or KDE) 4. Lock screen using {xlock, xscreensaver or KDE Screenblanker} 5. Try to end Screenblanker. It will not accept the password. Actual Results: Screenblanker does not accept Password. Expected Results: Well, it should accept Password. In the last RedHat Releases (6.1, 6.2, 7.0), even graphical Login (Step 3 above) would fail. So it seems to have been partially fixed in 7.1 However, Screen Blankers still don't work correctly. I rated this as "Security Issue", since we have about 5000 Users, who are forced to use "bad" passwords (containing few or no Special Characters) to be able to use Screen Blankers. These passwords are easily cracked. :-(
I have RH 7.1 en and have the same problem but only under root. When applying my root password to a normal user xlock will accept the AltGr key without problem.. Concerning graphical login I have noticed the same problem, however by reselecting the language you want at every logon, gdm then allows me to use AltGr keys.
On systems with french keyboard, i have exactly the same problem (RedHat 7.1). It's very important for me to get a walkthrough : we have about 1000 users.
I've heard reports of this before, but I don't understand what xscreensaver needs to do differently. It is making use of the XComposeStatus argument to XLookupString, and I thought that was sufficient. If someone wants to debug this, the relevant code is handle_passwd_key() in driver/lock.c. (run xscreensaver -sync under gdb remotely from another machine or virtual terminal to step it.)
Is this issue still a problem with recent versions of Fedora Core or RHEL?
Red Hat Linux is no longer supported by Red Hat, Inc. If you are still running Red Hat Linux, you are strongly advised to upgrade to a current Fedora Core release or Red Hat Enterprise Linux or comparable. Some information on which option may be right for you is available at http://www.redhat.com/rhel/migrate/redhatlinux/. Closing as CANTFIX.