[Fingerforce-devel] libpam_fprintd max_tries config

[Didier 'OdyX' Raboud]

Hello there Marcus,

As you can see from the commit date, this is more than 10 (! wow) since I committed this, during a period during which I was maintaining fprintd &co. My last upload on fprintd was in 2016. I have never since re-tried using pam_fprintd on any of the laptops I use.

I definitely and clearly don't insist that this patch is correct, meaningful or relevant nowadays. With my now-non-expert eyes, this seems to warrant a bugreport to Debian for removal, indeed. Without reportbug, you can always do so by sending an email as follows (keeping the three pseudo Package/Version/Severity headers):

To: Debian Bug Tracking System <submit at bugs.debian.org>
Subject: libpam-fprintd: {REPLACE WITH BUG TITLE}

Package: libpam-fprintd
Version: 1.94.2-2
Severity: normal

Dear Maintainer,

{INSERT BUG DESCRIPTION HERE}



I hope it helps.

Best regards,

Didier



5 janvier 2023 13:26 "Marcus Thiesen" <marcus at more-thiesen.de> a écrit:

> Hey Marco, Didier, 
> 
> So sorry to contact you directly, but as my Ubuntu System would not let me report a bug against a
> Debian package directly and ubuntu-bug stops me at an OOPS with my Launchpad login I am at a loss
> of how to use an official channel.
> 
> I just want to figure out why the max_tries for pam fprintd is set to 1 in Debian/Ubuntu, which
> means no retry. I would expect at least some retries when I have a failed attempt.
> 
> It comes from this commit:
> 
> commit d90232eaf6ce050ed494d9fb9cd8464ba595468f
> Author: Didier Raboud <odyx at debian.org>
> Date: Mon May 14 20:18:40 2012 +0200
> 
> Allow one to configure max_tries and timeout with a patch.
> 
> diff --git a/debian/pam-configs/fprintd b/debian/pam-configs/fprintd
> index 1c79d52..365e3dd 100644
> --- a/debian/pam-configs/fprintd
> +++ b/debian/pam-configs/fprintd
> @@ -4,4 +4,4 @@ Priority: 260
> Conflicts: fprint
> Auth-Type: Primary
> Auth:
> - [success=end default=ignore] pam_fprintd.so
> + [success=end default=ignore] pam_fprintd.so max_tries=1 timeout=10 # debug
> 
> That has been in there for 10 years, but in my opinion it makes fingerprint reading in
> Debian/Ubuntu totally unusable, because at least on my P1 Thinkpad the fingerprint reader is not
> reliable enough/I hit not well enough and I get false negatives quite often, after I changed that
> max_tries to 3 it is much more fun to use, because I can actually try again when it fails and I
> don't always have to fall back to typing my password. It then behaves more like my phone which is I
> guess by now expected behaviour (and I guess also the quality fingerprint readers have nowadays).
> 
> Is there a reason for it or is that just historic cruft? (Even the default is three) Can someone
> remove that? Or make it configurable in a way that I do not have to modify a packaged file?
> 
> Cheers,
> Marcus
> 
> --  :: Marcus More-Thiesen :: blog.thiesen.org :: @mthiesen :: 0173 / 28 01 82 4 ::