enforce screensaver for all users of a system?

Ed Wilts ewilts at ewilts.org
Tue Dec 14 22:03:15 UTC 2004


On Tue, Dec 14, 2004 at 04:41:13PM -0500, Matt Morgan wrote:
> We're migrating some of our users to FC3 from Windows (yay!). In
> Windows, we use system policies to force password-protected
> screensavers to turn on after a certain amount of idle time.
> 
> We can't figure out an obvious way to do this with xscreensaver. The
> man page explains,
> 
> "Options  to  xscreensaver  are  stored  in  one  of  two  places: in
> a .xscreensaver file in your  home  directory;  or  in  the  X 
> resource database.  If the .xscreensaver file exists, it overrides any
> settings in the resource database."
> 
> In other words, you can set this up system-wide, but users can
> override it with their own settings. I can think of obfuscatory ways
> to prevent that most of the time (break xscreensaver-demo), and
> reactive ways to keep it from happening for long (startup scripts that
> delete user settings). But we can't figure out the *right* way to do
> it. Any advice?

Without thinking about it too hard, I'd create my own system-wide
.xscreensaver file.  Then, at user creation time, create a symlink to
the system version and make the symlink owned by root with no user write
access.  I obviously haven't tested this to prove that it works without
breaking anything either.

-- 
Ed Wilts, RHCE
Mounds View, MN, USA
mailto:ewilts at ewilts.org
Member #1, Red Hat Community Ambassador Program




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