Configuring kdm

The kdm Handbook
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# Chapter 2. Configuring kdm

This chapter assumes that kdm is already up and running on your system, and that you simply want to change its behaviour in some way. If your problem is more serious, skip forward to later chapters.

When kdm starts up, it reads its configuration from the file `kdmrc`. Since kdm must run before any user is logged in, it is not associated with any particular user. Therefore, it is not possible to have a user-specific `$HOME/share/config/kdmrc` file; all users share the common version of `kdmrc`, located in `$KDEDIR/share/config/kdmrc`. It follows from this that the configuration of kdm can only be altered by those users that have write-access to `$KDEDIR/share/config/kdmrc` (normally restricted to system administrators logged in as "root").

You can view the `kdmrc` file currently in use on your system (located by default at `$KDEDIR/share/config/kdmrc`), and you can configure kdm by editing this file. Alternatively, you can use the graphical configuration tool provided by the KDE Control Centre (under Applications->System->Login Manager), which is described in the KControl help files.

The remainder of this chapter describes the contents of the `kdmrc` file. If you are happy using the graphical configuration tool, there's no need to read any further.

There are four sections in `kdmrc`:

# 2.1. KDM

The keys in this section are:

     StdFont
     FailFont
     GreetFont
     GreetString
     SessionTypes
     LogoArea
     LogoPixmap
     ShutdownButton
     Shutdown
     Restart
     ConsoleMode
     UserView
     Users
     NoUsers
     SortUsers
     GUIStyle

A short description of the keys:

`*Font`

  A fontsstring formatted like this: Courier,12,5,iso-8859-1,50,0.

`GreetString`

  The title of the kdm login window.

`SessionTypes`

  A comma-separated list of session arguments, usually used to select a particular window manager. Defaults to `SessionTypes=kde,failsafe`.

`LogoArea`

  Controls what appears in the lower left-hand corner of the login window. Can be either `KdmLogo` (in which case the image specified by `LogoPixMap` is displayed) or `KdmClock` (in which case a clock is displayed).

`LogoPixmap`

  Specifies the image to be displayed in the lower left-hand corner of the login window when LogoArea=KdmLogo.

`ShutdownButton`

  ShutdownButton controls when the shutdown button is displayed and can be one of `All`, `None`, `RootOnly` and `ConsoleOnly`. The meaning of `All` and `None` is very clear. If you choose `ConsoleOnly` you can't do a remote shutdown. If you choose `RootOnly` you will be prompted to enter the root password before the shutdown will proceed.

`Shutdown and Restart`

  The commands to run on system shutdown and restart, respectively. (Defaults: /sbin/halt and /sbin/reboot respectively.

`ConsoleMode`

  The command string used by the Console Mode option of the "Shutdown" button. (Default: /sbin/init `3`). This option is not available under BSD.

`UserView`

  If this is set to "`1`", a graphical view of users will be displayed in the kdm window.

`Users`

  A comma-separated list of usernames that will be displayed in the graphical user view. If `UserView` is set to "`1`" and the `Users` entry is missing, kdm will look for users in the password file `/etc/passwd`. The users displayed are those who have a real name beside their login name, a home directory and a default shell - the rest are skipped. kdm will look in `$KDEDIR/share/apps/kdm/pics/users/` for an icon for each user. If an icon named `johndoe.png` exists, kdm will use that for displaying user johndoe. If not, kdm will use `default.png`.

  kdm is able to handle icons of different sizes, but the result looks messy. The solution to this is to use an application such as KDE's Pixie, (or the GNU Image Manipulation Program, (gimp) or John Bradley's XV,) to convert all your images to the same size. A size of 64x64 should give enough resolution, and matches the default icons provided. These two programs can also be used to convert images from various formats into png format.

`NoUsers`

  A comma-separated list of usernames that won't be displayed. Use it to filter "pseudo-users" like `sync` and `shutdown` from the user view.

`SortUsers`

  If set to "`0`", the list of users are displayed in the order it was read. The default is to display users in sorted order.

`GUIStyle`

  Can be either `Motif` or `Windows`.

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