The aim of this short tutorial is to help you setup and Configure built-in Fingerprint Reader Login authentication on a Linux System. I tested this on My Arch Linux 64-bit Version running on HP Envy 15.
Previously I talked about
Easiest way to Install Nvidia 3D Graphics acceleration driver on Arch Linux
There are few packages that you’ll need to install from source to get Fingerprint reader to work. I cannot guarantee that this will work on your machine since I used it on HP only; just try it out.
This article will also explain how to use regular password for backup login method, we wouldn’t use Fingerprint scanner as main way of logging in.
Prerequisite
- You must have gcc installed
- git
- Fingerprint scanner
Installations
Install all of the following Packages. If you’re running Arch Linux, you can install fprintd and imagemagick
sudo pacman -S fprintd imagemagick
Install Libfprint
It is an open source software library designed to make it easy for application developers to add support for consumer fingerprint readers to their software.
git clone https://github.com/payden/libfprint.git ./autogen.sh ./configure --prefix=/usr make sudo make install
Install fprint_demo
It is a simple GTK+ application to demonstrate and test libfprint’s capabilities. It is written in C.It provides access to many of the features offered by the backing library, libfprint.
git clone git://github.com/dsd/fprint_demo.git cd fprint_demo/ ./autogen.sh ./configure --prefix=/usr make sudo make install
Install pam_fprint
It is a simple PAM module which uses libfprint’s fingerprint processing and verification functionality for authentication.
git clone git://github.com/dsd/pam_fprint.git cd pam_fprint/ ./autogen.sh ./configure --prefix=/usr make sudo make install
After successfull installation, generate Fingerprint signature, To add a signature for a finger, just run:
$ fprintd-enroll
You will be asked to scan the given finger. After that, the signature is created in /var/lib/fprint/.
You can use GUI by running
$ fprint_demo
You may also use
pam_fprint_enroll
Since i used fprintd, i will add its module to PAM authentication conf file,
nano /etc/pam.d/system-local-login
The add pam_fprintd.so as sufficient to the top of the auth section
auth sufficient pam_fprintd.so
Save changes and exit. See screenshot below.
Restart your computer and see if you’ll be prompted to scan your finger to unlock Login.
sudo reboot
