Bug 485423

Summary:	Option to recover forgotten password on the login screen
Product:	[Plasma] plasma-login-manager	Reporter:	Angel Docampo <docampo.angel>
Component:	general	Assignee:	Plasma Bugs List <plasma-bugs-null>
Status:	CONFIRMED ---
Severity:	wishlist	CC:	kde, kdedev, nate, olib141
Priority:	NOR
Version First Reported In:	unspecified
Target Milestone:	---
Platform:	Other
OS:	Linux
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:
Bug Depends on:
Bug Blocks:	485450

Description Angel Docampo 2024-04-12 09:07:55 UTC

I usually face low-level users (the kind of users who write their passwords on a post-it) who don’t use their computer in a daily basis, and sometimes they call me because they forgot their password. I can do nothing besides tell them to bring their computer and I will reset the password with the live CD method.

On Windows, they can use the 3 secret questions method for local accounts, and if you use an online account, you can reset your password though email validation or other methods, mac also offers some options to reset a forgotten password.

Obviously, those OSes are targeted to less tech-savy users, but I think it would be nice to offer a solution on Linux. The three secret questions seems to be the easiest one to develop, but sddm and the underlying desktop environment (or window manager) perhaps needs to be in “harmony”. At least, sddm should be able to change the user’s password if they answer the three questions, on the other hand, there should be a “wizard” asking for those questions inside the desktop (a secondary application).

I think devs from at least KDE and SDDM should agree to do their part of the job, KDE devs to do the wizard, and SDDM the logic to remember/reset the password using the secret questions entered by the user.

What do you think? It’s this even doable? I’m going to open this discussion as well on SDDM’s github https://github.com/sddm/sddm/issues/1913 because I think this cannot be implemented lonely by Plasma devs.

Comment 1 Nate Graham 2024-04-12 18:29:23 UTC

Something like this is definitely a good idea because normal people absolutely forget their system passwords and panic; I had to help my sister through this on her Mac just a few months ago--where thankfully it was very easy due to a built-in troubleshooting recovery partition. That's what I'd prefer for us too, though that would be a distro thing to implement. Having some kind of password recovery feature in SDDM too would make sense, but this is something we can't really feasibly do until SDDM is in KDE so we can integrate it better into Plasma. Marking as a subtask/blocker of Bug 485450.

In addition, we'd need to implement a way for users to set up their recovery questions ahead of time too--probably in the installer right when they create their user account. So we'd need distro coordination there as well.

As an aside, for the kinds of users you're talking about, auto-login with an empty password may be the way to go. People like this are typically in a home setting where there are no real security concerns.

Comment 2 TraceyC 2025-04-17 22:15:37 UTC

Moving to plasma-login since that exists now

Comment 3 Oliver Beard 2025-04-18 03:25:55 UTC

In the short term, we could allow (or even require) users to to supply a hint when using the Users KCM, and display the hint after a failed login attempt.

Comment 4 Angel Docampo 2025-04-23 18:59:04 UTC

(In reply to Oliver Beard from comment #3)
> In the short term, we could allow (or even require) users to to supply a
> hint when using the Users KCM, and display the hint after a failed login
> attempt.

well, that's better than nothing, indeed. And a checkbox allowing to hide the hint if the user doesn't want to be shown,