2.8 KiB
Howdy for Ubuntu
Windows Hello™ style authentication for Ubuntu. Use your built-in IR emitters and camera in combination with face recognition to prove who you are.
Using the central authentication system in Linux (PAM), this works everywhere you would otherwise need your password: Login, lock screen, sudo, su, etc.
Installation
Run the installer by pasting (ctrl+shift+V
) the following commands into the terminal one at a time:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:boltgolt/howdy
sudo apt update
sudo apt install howdy
This will guide you through the installation. When that's done run sudo howdy USER add
and replace USER
with your username to add a face model.
If nothing went wrong we should be able to run sudo by just showing your face. Open a new terminal and run sudo -i
to see it in action.
Note: The build of dlib can hang on 100% for over a minute, give it time.
Command line
The installer adds a howdy
command to manage face models for the current user. Use howdy help
to list the available options.
Command | Description | Needs user |
---|---|---|
add |
Add a new face model for the given user | Yes |
clear |
Remove all face models for the given user | Yes |
config |
Open the config file in nano | No |
disable |
Disable or enable howdy | No |
help |
Show a help page | No |
list |
List all saved face models for the given user | Yes |
remove |
Remove a specific model for the given user | Yes |
test |
Test the camera and recognition methods | No |
Troubleshooting
Any python errors get logged directly into the console and should indicate what went wrong. If authentication still fails but no errors are printed you could take a look at the last lines in /var/log/auth.log
to see if anything has been reported there.
If you encounter an error that hasn't been reported yet, don't be afraid to open a new issue.
Uninstalling
There is an uninstaller available, run sudo python3 /lib/security/howdy/uninstall.py
to remove Howdy from your system.
A note on security
This script is in no way as secure as a password and will never be. Although it's harder to fool than normal face recognition, a person who looks similar to you or well-printed photo of you could be enough to do it.
To minimize the chance of this script being compromised, it's recommend to leave this repo in /lib/security and to keep it read only.
DO NOT USE HOWDY AS THE SOLE AUTHENTICATION METHOD FOR YOUR SYSTEM.