NAME¶
kdm.options - configuration options for X display manager
DESCRIPTION¶
/etc/kde4/kdm/kdm.options contains a set of flags that determine some of
the behavior of the X display manager
kdm(1).
/etc/kde4/kdm/kdm.options may contain comments, which begin with a hash
mark and end at the next newline, just like comments in shell scripts. The
rest of the file consists of options which are expressed as words separated by
hyphens, with only one option per line. If an option is present with the
‘no-’ prefix, or absent, it is disabled, otherwise it is
considered enabled.
Available options are:
- ignore-nologin
- Normally, the contents of the /etc/nologin file will be
displayed using xmessage(1x) (if xmessage is available), and
the user will be returned to the kdm login screen after the xmessage is
dismissed. If this option is enabled, kdm starts a session as usual (after
the xmessage is dismissed, if xmessage is available).
- restart-on-upgrade
- Enable this option with caution on ‘production’
machines; it causes the kdm daemon to be stopped and restarted on upgrade,
even if the process has children (which means it is managing X sessions).
Typically when a package that contains a daemon is being installed or
upgraded, its maintainer scripts stop a running daemon process before
installing the new binary, and restart it after the new binary is
installed. Stopping kdm causes immediate termination of any sessions it
manages; in some situations this could be an unwelcome surprise (for
instance, for remote kdm users who had no idea the administrator was
performing system maintenance). On the other hand, for machines that stay
up for long periods of time, leaving the old daemon running can be a bad
idea if the new version has, for instance, a fix for a security
vulnerability (overwriting kdm's executable on the file system has no
effect on the copy of kdm in memory). The kdm pre-removal script checks to
see if the kdm process has any children; if it does, it is possible that
someone's session would be killed by stopping kdm, so a warning is issued
and an opportunity to abort the upgrade of kdm is provided. If this option
is disabled (the Debian default), kdm will be not be stopped or started
during an install or upgrade; the administrator will have to do so by hand
(with ‘/etc/init.d/kdm restart’, or by rebooting the system)
before the newly installed kdm binary is used.
Users of older versions of the Debian system should note that the
‘run-xconsole’ option has been removed. Shell scripts named
/etc/kde4/kdm/Xsetup and
/etc/kde4/kdm/Xreset can be edited to
disable or modify the running of xconsole on the kdm greeter screen; see the
kdm manual page for more information.
AUTHOR¶
This manpage was written by Branden Robinson for the Debian Project.
SEE ALSO¶
xmessage(1x),
kdm(1x)