Your message dated Thu, 8 Oct 2026 13:30:35 -0400
with message-id <[email protected]>
and subject line Re: xdm: does not allow to log in when no password is set
has caused the Debian Bug report #478263,
regarding xdm: does not allow to log in when no password is set
to be marked as done.
This means that you claim that the problem has been dealt with.
If this is not the case it is now your responsibility to reopen the
Bug report if necessary, and/or fix the problem forthwith.
(NB: If you are a system administrator and have no idea what this
message is talking about, this may indicate a serious mail system
misconfiguration somewhere. Please contact [email protected]
immediately.)
--
478263: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=478263
Debian Bug Tracking System
Contact [email protected] with problems
--- Begin Message ---
Package: xdm
Severity: normal
When I try to log in as a user with no password set xdm asks for a
password and fails to verify it. I have to set an empty password to make
xdm happy but this breaks other stuff.
Thanks
Michal
-- System Information:
Debian Release: lenny/sid
APT prefers testing
APT policy: (990, 'testing'), (500, 'unstable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Kernel: Linux 2.6.23.3-src (SMP w/1 CPU core)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
tags 478263 + wontfix
thanks
On Mon, 28 Apr 2008 14:35:17 +0200 "Michal Suchanek"
<[email protected]> wrote:
> Package: xdm
> Severity: normal
>
>
> When I try to log in as a user with no password set xdm asks for a
> password and fails to verify it. I have to set an empty password to make
> xdm happy but this breaks other stuff.
Hi,
This is intended and configurable behavior, so I am closing this bug.
As Cyril pointed out in 2011, xdm(8) documents the X resource
xlogin.Login.allowNumllPasswd. Unless this is set to true, xdm calls
pam_authenticate() with PAM_DISALLOW_NULL_AUTHTOK, which tells pam_unix
to reject empty passwords even though Debian's common-auth uses
"nullok". login(1) does not pass that flag, hence there is such difference. The
xdm default is the same policy choice as sshd's "PermitEmptyPasswords no".
To allow accounts without a password to log in via xdm, add
xlogin.Login.allowNullPasswd: true
to /etc/X11/xdm/Xresources and restart xdm. Such accounts can then log in
with an empty password. This is still the case in xdm 1:1.1.17.
Thanks,
Boyuan Yang
--- End Message ---
