I am building a dedicated network appliance that need to automatically login into a KDE session as part of the bootup process. I am using Fedora Core 1 ( stock kernel ) and KDE is set as the default desktop manager, and I have went into the KDE control center->logon->convenience and checked "automatic login" and selected an account for it to automatically login after KDE startes up.

However, when it boots up, it stops at at the pre-KDE session logon screen no matter which account I choose for it to automatically log into. In addition, I have also enabled "password-less login" for the auto-login account to no avail. What am I missing here? Any ideas?

the default Graphical Login Manager in fedora is GDM (part of GNOME)
its used even if you use KDE.

i would guess that you are configureing KDM correctly for auto-login,
but when you boot, linux is using GDM, (whhich is not configured for auto-login)

im not sure how to go about fixing it... but i would guess this is the problem.

That makes sense, I will do some more searching and see if the new info helps me find the answer. I was thinking the logon screen was a basic X11 interface, but you are most likely right ( that it is GDM ). Thanks.

That was it. I started a Gnome session instead of the default KDE, then went to Fedora -> System Settings -> Login Screen->General and enabled automatic login, and it worked! Thankks for your help. Plus I have wake on lan WoL working, I just wish there was a sleep on lan SoL standard out there to remotely shutdown the Linux boxen.

~Fortezza

i came across a similar problem and changed my login manager to KDM from within /etc/inittab
however you seem to have fixed it yourself (kdm is UGLY !!!!!!)

any idea's on how to configure GDM without having to download and install GNOME ?

anyways... sleep on lan.... how sbout ssh (your_ip) login as root, and issue whatever command pust the machine into sleep mode ?

What I am doing with all the Wake On Lan / Autologin stuff is making a linux box act like an appliance ( say, a Television ), with added features that are available because the appliance is actually a computer. The prototype wakes me up in the morning by receiving a WoL packet, then it boots up, logs in, and wakes me up ( right now it plays some tunes that are guaranteed to wake me up in the morning ). That part is good, I can even tell it to fire up certain playists and power it off with my TV remote control ( thanks LIRC! ), but if I forget to turn it off, I would like to have the same system that woke it up, tell it to shutdown/poweroff.

Now, scripting an SSH session/login then having it send the "shutdown -h now" command is an idea, but I would rather have something more elegant that did not include having to hardcode a username/password into a scheduled script ( via CRON ). Let me know if you have any ideas. The solution would have to account for the fact that the target system may already be off, but figure a ping check should be sufficient for that.

i doubt you will find a solution that causes a remote machine to shutdown without obtaining any kind of authentcation.
its just too much of a security risk.

maybe you could write a program that runs with root privilages (in /etr/rc.d/rc.local)
and listens for a UDP packet to a certain port.... (set your firewall to only allow UDP to that port that comes from a local ip address (yes i know that can be spoofed, but its bettr than nothing)

and then have your program look for a certian string like "go to sleep" in the UDP packets it recivs on the port, and puts the machine to sleep (or shutdown) if and when it recievs the packet.

it seems to be the only solution.
it will be quite easy provided you have a good knolege of network progrramming,