kbdlock

Overview

Kbdlock is a simple console locker program for GNU/Linux systems.

Downloads

The project's homepage at Puszcza contains the latest news and patches for the project.

Stable releases are available from download.gnu.org.ua. The latest stable release is kbdlock-1.0.

Installation

Kbdlock is designed to work with Linux kernel. No configuration suite is provided, its Makefile should work on any GNU system with Linux kernel.

Following steps are needed to install the package:

1. (optional) Edit Makefile.

   The only two variables you might want to change are INSTALLDIR and GROUP. INSTALLDIR specifies the directory where to install kbdlock binary. GROUP sets the name of a group whose members are allowed to use kbdlock.

2. Run make install
3. Edit /etc/group.

   After the installation a group named kbdlock will be created. This group is initially empty. Add to this group the users that will be permitted to use the program.

Usage

When you leave your console, type kbdlock and it will be locked. When you are back, hit Enter and type your system password to unlock it. That's all.

To remind you (and anybody else), that the console is locked, kbdlock will display:

tty is locked by username

You can turn this off by supplying -q (--quiet) command line option.

By default, kbdlock expects you to use your system password to unlock the console. If you wish to use another password, start the program with -p (or --password) option and it will prompt you to enter an alternative password.

Finally, using -t (--timeout) command line option you can specify a timeout after which kbdlock will automatically unlock the console. The argument to this option is either a single number, which will be interpreted as a number of seconds, or a time specification in form NNhNNmNNs, where NN denotes a decimal number and the letters h, m and s mark the previous number as hours, minutes or seconds, correspondingly. Any of these three parts may be missing. For example, running

kbdlock -t 12h  

will set the timeout to 12 hours.