Too many guest accounts

Linux Support
1

This again is probably a trivial thing, but I have 2 guest accounts and I only want one.

on my log in screen I have my own account, guest and guest account, neither guest or guest account is passworded but if I log into guest account network is disabled, guest is enabled.

In users and groups I see 2 accounts listed my own account & guest, I’ve deleted guest 3 times but it immediately comes back.

is there any way I can have just 1 guest account listed on the login screen preferably network enabled because I don’t see any point in there being 2

Many thanks

Graeme

2

a) which Linux distro/version/architecture ?

and

b) does it really matter … the guest account is only created in /tmp when you log into it … so it’s not taking up space.

3
a) which Linux distro/version/architecture ?

peppermint 3 LXDE default DE

does it really matter .. the guest account is only created in /tmp when you log into it .. so it's not taking up space.

Yes it does because if for example if my daughter wanted to use my pc while I was out she would be presented with a choice she doesn’t need to be presented with also she only has an evens chance of selecting the right one, she may choose the one that doesn’t give her network access and lets face it the chances are if she wanted to use the pc in the first place it would be to go on to the internet,

Many thanks

Graeme

4

OK, you might have one ‘real’ guest account and one with the name ‘guest’
Try disabling the real guest account (replace gedit with leafpad if need to):

sudo gedit /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf

Change or add this line:

allow-guest=false

Now Save and Exit from file.
Reboot and see which ‘guest’ is missing

5

What’s the output from:

cat /etc/passwd | grep "/home"

and

ls -a /tmp

and the contents of:

gedit /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf
6

Hi guys

What SeZo suggested has left me with Guest only (which is fine) but I don’t know yet if that account has network enabled but I assume it does because that’s the account that was enabled before,

@Mark in view of that do you still want the outputs you asked for ?

Graeme

7

If it works the way you want … NO

If not … YES :slight_smile:

8
What SeZo suggested has left me with Guest only

That would suggest that Guest is a normal account (as the system generated was disabled)
If you got network etc then it should be fine to use except it is allowed to write data and save settings,
whilst the real guest account clears its tracks on log out.

9

Yeh, as it’s likely not a normal “guest” session … it might ba a good idea to see what groups it belongs to.

10

I think I’m quite happy to leave it as is, the only people who will ever use this account is people I trust and would want to give full access too anyway

Graemw

11

Ok so what do you think I should do ?

Graeme

12

Actually if it’s a normal USER account and not a guest session … and YOU didn’t create that account … you REALLY should check which groups it belongs to, and try to track down what’s creating it.

Are you saying it’s listed in Users & Groups ?

13
Are you saying it's listed in Users & Groups ?

Yes

according to advanced user settings it’s a member of guest

To be honest I think I created this account a while ago because I couldn’t get guest to enable network thinking I could just delete if it didn’t work

Graeme

14

If you created it, and it does what you want … all is fine then :slight_smile:

If you didn’t create it … that’s another story.

It’s a bit odd that you can’t delete the account though … I just created one called guest, and had no problem deleting it.

Did you log off/on again after deleting it ?

15
Did you log off/on again after deleting it ?

Yes I logged off and it was still there and I tried rebooting and it still wouldn’t go away, even immediately after deleting if I simply came out of users and groups and went back in it was back

16

Do you still want to delete it ?

17
Do you still want to delete it ?

Unless there’s any advantage I don’t see any point, other than it would be interesting to know why it wouldn’t delete with me but otherwise it’s working ok so I’m happy to leave it as it is

Graeme

18

Well if it’s a regular user account with its own /home folder:

ls /home

Then you could try logging on to an admin account, and using “userdel” from the command line.

First see:

man userdel

Your best option may be to use the -r option to also remove the /home/guest home folder … as in:

sudo userdel -r guest

If it still won’t budge … try the -f option to force removal.

But as you say … if it’s working as you want … why bother :wink:

19

Ok thank you Mark if I decide to change it I have that refer to and if i have any more problems I’ll post back here, also a big thanks to SeZo, I don’t know what I’d do without the pair of you :slight_smile:

Many thanks

Graeme

PS should I mark this solved ?

20

That’s completely up to you :slight_smile:

Not so fussy here as the Peppermint forum, as solved topics don’t get archived.

I do like people to mark topics solved if they are obviously and completely solved … but this one is in a grey area, so it’s your call, it’s your topic after all :wink:

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