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<page xmlns="http://projectmallard.org/1.0/"
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xmlns:its="http://www.w3.org/2005/11/its"
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type="topic" style="task"
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id="shell-guest-session">
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<link type="guide" xref="shell-overview#desktop" group="#last"/>
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<link type="guide" xref="user-accounts#manage"/>
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<desc>Let a friend or colleague borrow your computer in a secure manner.</desc>
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<revision version="14.04" date="2014-02-17" status="review"/>
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<credit type="author">
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<name>Gunnar Hjalmarsson</name>
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<email>gunnarhj@ubuntu.com</email>
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<include href="legal.xml" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude"/>
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<title>Launch a restricted guest session</title>
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<section id="restricted">
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<title>Temporary session with restricted privileges</title>
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<p>Once in a while a friend, family member, or colleague may want to borrow your computer.
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The Ubuntu <app>Guest Session</app> feature provides a convenient way,
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with a high level of security, to lend your computer to someone else. A guest session can
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be launched either from the login screen or from within a regular session. If you are currently
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logged in, click the icon at the far right of the <gui>menu bar</gui> and select <gui>Guest Session</gui>.
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This will lock the screen for your own session and start the guest session.</p>
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<p>A guest cannot view the home folders of other users, and by default
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any saved data or changed settings will be removed/reset at logout. It means that each
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session starts with a fresh environment, unaffected by what previous guests did.</p>
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<section id="customize">
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<title>Customization</title>
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<p>The <link href="https://help.ubuntu.com/community/CustomizeGuestSession">
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Customize Guest Session</link> online tutorial explains how to customize
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the appearance and behavior.</p>
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<section id="disable">
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<title>Disabling the feature</title>
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<p>If you prefer to not allow guest access to your computer, you can disable the <app>Guest
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Session</app> feature. To do so, press <keyseq><key>Ctrl</key><key>Alt</key><key>T</key></keyseq>
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to open a terminal window, and then run this command (it's one long command, even if it may be
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shown wrapped on the screen - copy and paste to get it right):</p>
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<p><cmd its:translate="no">sudo sh -c 'printf "[SeatDefaults]\nallow-guest=false\n" >/usr/share/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/50-no-guest.conf'</cmd></p>
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<p>The command creates a small configuration file. To re-enable <app>Guest Session</app>, simply
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<p><cmd its:translate="no">sudo rm /usr/share/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/50-no-guest.conf</cmd></p>
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ubuntu-kylin-help/C/shell-guest-session.page
