FPrint

PPA description

FINGERPRINT AUTHENTICATION FOR UBUNTU BASED ON FPRINTD
=======================================================
This PPA contains packages that add a comprehensive fingerprint-based authentication functionality to Ubuntu, including a seamless integration into GNOME 2.x, Unity and GNOME 3.x. Please note that since Ubuntu 12.10 these packages are present in the standard repositories. Still, this PPA contains more recent version of the software, supporting a wider range of fingerprint readers. The version shipped in Ubuntu 18.10 and newer is up-to-date, and this PPA does not contain the packages.

Quick installation guide
==================
Supported devices are: https://fprint.freedesktop.org/supported-devices.html
To find out your reader's ID, run the lsusb command and look into the sixth column of the output.

1. Add this PPA to your sources:
      sudo add-apt-repository ppa:fingerprint/fprint
      sudo apt-get update
      sudo apt-get upgrade
2. Install the software:
     sudo apt-get install libfprint0 fprint-demo libpam-fprintd

(Note: If you have experimented with fingerprint authentication before and have changed your /etc/pam.d/common-auth, you may be presented with a screen asking whether you want to override those changes. Select Yes. Under very special circumstances, you may get an error saying
   pam-auth-update: Local modifications to /etc/pam.d/common-*, not updating.
   pam-auth-update: Run pam-auth-update --force to override.
In this case, run “sudo pam-auth-update --force”, exactly as suggested, and enable the fprintd profile manually. Leave the standard system profiles (Unix, Keyring and ConsoleKit) enabled as well.)

3. Launch “fprint project demo” and check that you can enroll and verify your fingerprints and that your reader is indeed supported.
4. Run “fprintd-enroll” in terminal to save your fingerprint.

That's all! Test it: Lock and unlock screen, log out and back in, try sudo in terminal.

Known (minor) issues
=================
1. No fingerprint and password at the same time
At the moment, you cannot type in your password right away when you are asked for fingerprint. You need to make the fingerprint authentication fail first (swipe wrong finger or let it time out) before you are asked for password. This is a limitation of PAM because its modules mustn't be threaded and hence cannot support multiple means of authentication at the same time. (The old ThinkFinger used to do this, but it was a gross hack which caused many troubles.) A possible solution to this limitation is to make gdm, screensaver and policykit-1 support multiple alternative PAM stacks. Fedora 12 has enhanced the GDM login screen with a button that switches between password and fingerprint authentication mode (screenshot: http://bit.ly/cEjYbo). Similar enhancements for screensaver and PolicyKit are being worked on by Red Hat (see https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=500338).

Note on keyrings and passwordless logins
=================================
If you log in with your fingerprint, the default keyring manager will not have access to your password or any other secret data to decrypt your enciphered content with. The same applies to encrypted partitions and their automatic unlocking with libpam-mount or eCryptFS. Please note that it is not possible to unlock the keyring unless you have typed in your password (there's nothing to unlock it with, and having a key stored somewhere on disk is a very naïve and insecure solution). If you are wondering why fingerprint authentication cannot provide any secret data to replace the standard password mechanism, please read section “How fingerprint authentication works” below.

There are basically 2 possible solutions to the keyring issue:
1. Keep logging in with your password as before (you will need to make the fingerprint authentication fail first by scanning a wrong finger) and then use fingerprint only for sudo and locked screens. This way you will have your standard password available in your session, and keyring and encrypted partitions will work as before.
2. Remove the password from your default keyring. This way the passwords in it will be stored unencrypted, but this may be perfectly acceptable for you if you store only insensitive data in it (such as passwords to Wi-Fi networks). If you decide to take this route, here is a short how-to: Go to Applications > Accessories > Passwords and Encryption Keys, card Passwords, right click on Passwords: login, Change Password and set it to empty string.

Contact & Feedback
================
Packaging by https://launchpad.net/~jurenka
Packaging requests: bug #376540, bug #346083
Feedback (via Launchpad, by email to ubuntu.box AT-SIGN imx.jurenka D.O.T cz, or by posting to the bugs above) is most welcome.

Issues with the software itself (and not the packaging) are best to be submitted directly to the upstream bug tracker at https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/libfprint/libfprint/issues or to the upstream mailing list at http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/fprint .
You can run fprintd in debugging mode by executing:
   sudo killall fprintd
   sudo /usr/lib/fprintd/fprintd -t

How fingerprint authentication works
=============================
When you set up fprintd and enroll your fingerprint for the first time, the scan (basically just an image) gets saved on your hard drive (it goes into /var/lib/fprint/<username>). Then when you try to authenticate yourself, the system gets another scan from reader, and it checks whether the picture received looks more or less the same as the picture stored on disk. If that is the case, the user is let in.
This implies that the fingerprint authentication cannot serve as a source of any secret data that could then be used as a password (to decrypt the content of the default keyring or to unlock encrypted partitions, for instance).
Theoretically, one could think of a mathematical reduction of the fingerprint to a number, a reduction that would be comprehensive as well as consistent so that different scans of the same finger always be reduced to the same number but scans of different fingers produce different numbers. Then only a hash of such a description of the fingerprint pattern could be saved on disk for the sake of authentication, and the number itself could be used as a secret, not a particularly strong secret since you keep it publicly at a well known place (your fingertip) and keep leaving copies of it on everything you touch, but at least it wouldn't be stored on your disk, and it could be used for decrypting the keyring, for instance.
However, such a technology is not available at the moment, and it doesn't seem to be feasible either. One hundred years of forensic dactyloscopy haven't brought any applicable algorithm. For the time being, one has to settle for fingerprints only as means of authentication, not as source of passwords for decrypting one's enciphered content.
Additional reading:
Overview of current technology: http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/sourceafis/ (section Similar projects)
Launchpad discussion on a related matter: bug #276384
Handbook of Fingerprint Recognition: http://bias.csr.unibo.it/maltoni/handbook/

Upstream links
===========
Official website: https://fprint.freedesktop.org/
Code repository: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/libfprint/libfprint/
Mailing list: http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/fprint/Mailing_list/
Bug tracker: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/libfprint/libfprint/issues

Adding this PPA to your system

You can update your system with unsupported packages from this untrusted PPA by adding ppa:fingerprint/fprint to your system's Software Sources. (Read about installing)

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:fingerprint/fprint
sudo apt update
        
Technical details about this PPA

This PPA can be added to your system manually by copying the lines below and adding them to your system's software sources.

Display sources.list entries for:
deb https://ppa.launchpadcontent.net/fingerprint/fprint/ubuntu YOUR_UBUNTU_VERSION_HERE main 
deb-src https://ppa.launchpadcontent.net/fingerprint/fprint/ubuntu YOUR_UBUNTU_VERSION_HERE main 
Signing key:
1024R/8141A328E64AC6C85D337D03EFD5FA852F20733F (What is this?)
Fingerprint:
8141A328E64AC6C85D337D03EFD5FA852F20733F

For questions and bugs with software in this PPA please contact Fingerprint readers integration.

PPA statistics

Activity
0 updates added during the past month.
View package details

Overview of published packages

14 of 4 results
Package Version Uploaded by
gksu-polkit 0.0.3+repack1-0ppa1~trusty1 David Jurenka ()
libfprint 1:0.7.0-git20180311-1-0ppa1~xenial1 David Jurenka ()
libfprint 1:0.7.0-git20180311-1-0ppa1~trusty1 David Jurenka ()
libfprint 1:0.7.0-git20180311-1-0ppa1~bionic1 David Jurenka ()
14 of 4 results

Latest updates

  • libfprint 310 weeks ago
    Successfully built
  • libfprint 310 weeks ago
    Successfully built
  • libfprint 310 weeks ago
    Successfully built
  • gksu-polkit 526 weeks ago
    Successfully built