Is there such a thing as a guest account, and/or can it be done in 7.04?

hi,

typically all user accounts under ubuntu are 'unprivileged', that is you can only modify the data in your home directory. some user accounts (such as yours now i would imagine) have 'sudo' privileges which allows them to use the sudo command to get 'root' privileges that let you modify the whole system.

in other words you can just create a new account using the Users and Groups system tool, when you press the add account button you'll see a tab where you can configure the privileges that account will get. just make sure that Administer the System is turned off along with anything else you don't want to give them access to ;).

-- gord

I am still wondering, because it always asks for a password, if there is a way to have no passwords with the unprivileged account..

Hello,

What you can do is to automatically login with a guest user after 30 seconds.

Navigate to System->Administration->Login Window

Go to "security" tab

click on "Enable timed login" and specify the user you want to login automatically after 30 secs.

Go to system -> adim -> login window and select the security tab. Check the box for "enable automatic login" and then choose the user that should auto login (such as a guest account that you set up). I've actually never tried that so I'm not sure what will happen but I expect that user will not need a password. I'm also not sure of the security ramifications. For example, I think by default all users can see the home folder of other users - but not write. This would give anyone access to your files without a password and you may or may not want that. Of course, you can change the privileges on your home folder so this doesn't happen.

Hope that helps

EDIT: oops. Too slow.

Another Edit:

Okay, I just tried my suggestion and it doesn't seem to do anything. Now I'm wondering what it's for. Anyway, Hanusz's timed login is what you want. I think the security issue still exists, however. you might want to at least set a password and share it with those you want to have access - just in case.

Yet Another Edit:

Sorry to be confusing but just want to clarify. I played around a bit more and the "enable automatic login" works at boot up. In other words, if you have a guest account set to auto login, when you boot it will skip the login screen and just login the guest account. If you log out (which is how I first tested it) it will give you login screen and ask for user name and password. So, this would be a good solution if you want someone to be able to boot up and not need to login but for a situation where you will be switching users it won't be much good. The timed option is better in that case.

There, I hope that covers it.

I think there should be a easier way. All the solutions presented above are workarounds!

See also:

HowTo: Create a Passwordless / Guest Login (Simple Method): http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=513820
=> the HowTo does fiddle deep down in the system.

I want to have -- besides my other normal password protected accounts -- a guest accout which
* needs no password: I type in the user name "Guest" and get staright to the desktop
* is locked down to only access the home directory of guest. No other drives such as additional fat32 data partitions etc.
* configuration files like firefox and gaim get cleaned after log out.

How to I get this?

Thanks in advance!

There is a Guest account in the latest version of Ubuntu, but it doesn't work as expected. You can only enter the Guest account after another user has logged in and given you control of the computer.