How to set up built-in fingerprint reader authentication with PAM on any Linux

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The purpose of this short tutorial is to help you set up and configure the built-in fingerprint Reader login authentication on Linux system. I tested this on a 64-bit version of My Arch Linux running on HP Envy 15.

I said before

The easiest way to install Nvidia 3D graphics acceleration driver on Arch Linux

You need to install some software packages from the source code to make Fingerprint Reader work properly. Since I have only used it on HP, I cannot guarantee that this will work on your computer. try it.

This article will also explain how to use a regular password for backup login, because we will not use a fingerprint scanner as the main login method.

prerequisites

1. You must have gcc installed
2. Git
3. Fingerprint scanner

Device

Install all the following packages.If you are running Arch Linux, you can install fprintd with Image magician

sudo pacman -S fprintd imagemagick

Install libfprint

It is an open source software library designed to allow application developers to easily add support for consumer fingerprint readers in their software.

git clone https://github.com/payden/libfprint.git
./autogen.sh 
./configure --prefix=/usr
make
sudo make install

Install fprint_demo

This is a simple GTK+ application to demonstrate and test the functionality of libfprint. It is written in C. It provides access to many functions provided 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 that uses libfprint’s fingerprint processing and verification functions for identity verification.

git clone git://github.com/dsd/pam_fprint.git 
cd pam_fprint/
./autogen.sh 
./configure --prefix=/usr
make
sudo make install

After successful installation, generate a fingerprint signature. To add a signature to your finger, just run:

$ fprintd-enroll

The system will ask you to scan the given finger.After that, create a signature in the following location /var/lib/fprint/You can use the GUI by running

$ fprint_demo

You can also use

pam_fprint_enroll

Since I used fprintd, I added its module to the PAM authentication conf file,

nano /etc/pam.d/system-local-login

Add pam_fprintd.so to the top of the auth section

auth sufficient pam_fprintd.so

Save changes and exit. See the screenshot below.

Restart the computer and see if you are prompted to scan your finger to unlock the login name.

sudo reboot

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