Smartcard login - too many messages

[Webbeh]

Hi there

https://youtu.be/Lsm-6KxoDD4

As you can see in the attached video, pretty self explainatory.

This happens also without the smartcard inserted, as long as PAM loads the PKCS module, you get those messages.

Any way to make them less verbose ?

Thanks!

[ncopa]

xfce-polkit only displays the info messages that comes from polkit, so I gues the proper fix is to make the PKCS module to not send info messages?

Does this also happen with polkit-gnome?

[Webbeh]

Hi.
No, not that I'm aware of.

There should be a way to make those messages non-modal though. For example, adding a text field on top of the two login/password fields, that either updates with every polkit message or adds a line for every one of those, rather than a new popup.

[ncopa]

Or maybe send them to the notification daemon.

Do you have simple way for me to reproduce it?

[Webbeh]

Sadly, without a smartcard, no idea...

I am not knowledgeable enough to be sure of what I'm saying here, but maybe by making another module send more messages, you could simulate that.

[Webbeh]

Also there is two things I forgot to mention.
The PKCS11 module has been enabled with this :

auth sufficient pam_pkcs11.so quiet

Which means that

1. Its quiet flags are set already
2. The first Smartcard authentication starts message will appear whether a smartcard is inserted or not, or whether the smartcard is already being used or not.

There should be a way to recognize, in the Auth window, whether it's a SmartCard login or a Password login that is being used.

The password field changes to smartcard pin already, but I think it may be slightly too subtle. But that's a secondary issue I guess.

Lastly, I believe the messages from pam_pkcs11.so are sent through STDIN, as the following picture might prove.