Ubuntu Tip:How to disable guest account in ubuntu 12.04(Precise)

14 Comments to “Ubuntu Tip:How to disable guest account in ubuntu 12.04(Precise)”

1. danrgmc says:

   May 10, 2012 at 3:17 am

   You might add to this the fact that there is a bug in lightdm that affects some of us that causes lightdm to ONLY boot to the guest account unless the above action is taken.

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2. Sergio says:

   May 10, 2012 at 3:28 pm

   Please add a warning saying that after executing sudo restart lightdm all graphical programs running will be closed.

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   ruchi Reply:
   May 10th, 2012 at 3:32 pm

   Thank you and i have updated in the main article

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3. shejuguru says:

   July 8, 2012 at 1:00 pm

   Thanks a lot for this piece of information.

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4. Vishal says:

   July 24, 2012 at 6:29 am

   Thanks a lot. I have to do it. Thanks very much.

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5. Kalimuthu says:

   July 31, 2012 at 1:16 pm

   Hi,
   I’ve made the changes but guest account is not disabled mean it’s login.

   Thanks,
   –Kalimuthu

   [Reply]

   Sarthak Reply:
   May 7th, 2013 at 11:55 pm

   Copy paste the below lines. It will work.

   [SeatDefaults]
   user-session=ubuntu
   greeter-session=unity-greeter
   allow-guest=false

   [Reply]
6. Hank22077 says:

   August 4, 2012 at 7:43 pm

   Thank you for this. All I really wanted was to prevent my kids from guest login w/o permission. So, I really wanted to just be able to make it like 10.04LTS, where I’d have to be logged in to allow the guest access; but, this works just fine.
   However, if you know how to allow guest access from an admin account please let me know. So far, this is the only option I’ve found. Thanks

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7. Felippe Castro says:

   September 27, 2012 at 6:18 am

   Thanks, works fine!

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8. Alberto says:

   October 19, 2012 at 9:44 am

   As danrgmc says, there’s a bug in lightdm, it only boot in guest account.
   For writing that file, we need the default root password. Do you know what is the default root password in the prebuilt images?

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9. Francis Massolin says:

   November 15, 2012 at 6:20 am

   @Alberto:
   There is nothing as such as a default root password in Ubuntu. The OS was designed to enforce the use of your user account, rather than using root for every admin task. Instead the system relies on SUDO to run any process that requires root privileges. In plain english, it means that to run any process requiring root privileges, you must use the following syntax:

   #sudo + command + commmand’s options
   e.g: sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

   You will then be asked for the admin password, which is in fact your own user account password, the one you’ve created when you installed the system for the first time. That account was automatically added to the admin list in SUDO (/etc/sudoers – don’t mess with this file unless you know exactly what you’re doing!)

   Having said that, sometimes it can be obviously annoying to not being able to log in as root. To do so, you must first ‘activate’ that account, which consist in allocating a password to root :

   #sudo passwd root
   Then enter your new password (a strong one).

   Now the root account is ‘activated’ and you can use the command “su – root” to open a shell session with root.
   Opening a new shell session with “su” is a safer way to use the system than to log on as the root user, something I personally do not recommend.

   Of course, if you make a mistake when using the root account you will feel sorry for yourself…
   With great power comes great responsibilities. ;o)

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10. Pouya says:

    December 21, 2012 at 8:06 am

    thanks alot, but i cannot edit lightdm.conf

    i don’t have permission for that

    what should i do?

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11. Mac says:

    January 13, 2013 at 5:38 am

    Thanks.

    [Reply]
12. Diogo says:

    February 9, 2013 at 7:22 pm

    Thanks!

    [Reply]