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Ray Butterworth
Asked: 2020-11-16 10:52:22 +0800 CST

Why is the fingerprint daemon started when there is no fingerprint reader?

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Whenever I sign onto (or unlock the passworded screen of) a recently installed 20.04 system, /var/log/syslog reports that it is starting the fingerprint authentication daemon:

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Nov 15 13:29:28 ray-desktop dbus-daemon[528]: [system] Activating via systemd: service name='net.reactivated.Fprint' unit='fprintd.service' requested by ':1.193' (uid=1000 pid=8276 comm="/usr/bin/gnome-shell " label="unconfined")
Nov 15 13:29:28 ray-desktop systemd[1]: Starting Fingerprint Authentication Daemon...
Nov 15 13:29:28 ray-desktop dbus-daemon[528]: [system] Successfully activated service 'net.reactivated.Fprint'
Nov 15 13:29:28 ray-desktop systemd[1]: Started Fingerprint Authentication Daemon.
Nov 15 13:29:29 ray-desktop NetworkManager[86471]: <info>  [1605464969.2480] agent-manager: agent[5d99141cf1aa3382,:1.193/org.gnome.Shell.NetworkAgent/1000]: agent registered
Nov 15 13:29:29 ray-desktop dbus-daemon[8052]: [session uid=1000 pid=8052] Activating service name='org.freedesktop.FileManager1' requested by ':1.42' (uid=1000 pid=8276 comm="/usr/bin/gnome-shell " label="unconfined")
Nov 15 13:29:29 ray-desktop dbus-daemon[8052]: [session uid=1000 pid=8052] Activating service name='org.gnome.Nautilus' requested by ':1.42' (uid=1000 pid=8276 comm="/usr/bin/gnome-shell " label="unconfined")
Nov 15 13:29:29 ray-desktop dbus-daemon[8052]: [session uid=1000 pid=8052] Successfully activated service 'org.gnome.Nautilus'
Nov 15 13:29:29 ray-desktop org.gnome.Nautilus[132137]: Failed to register: Unable to acquire bus name 'org.gnome.Nautilus'
Nov 15 13:29:29 ray-desktop dbus-daemon[8052]: [session uid=1000 pid=8052] Successfully activated service 'org.freedesktop.FileManager1'
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Nov 15 13:29:58 ray-desktop systemd[1]: fprintd.service: Succeeded.
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This is a desktop computer with no fingerprint hardware, so why does it run the daemon?

And more importantly, how does one tell the system not to?

login authentication services

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Why is the fingerprint daemon started when there is no fingerprint reader?

    Because it is a daemon that is started by default independent of there being actual hardware to support it.

    You could consider that a bug. Or someone decided it was not worth adding support to start or not start it when installing Ubuntu.

    Whenever I sign onto a recently installed 20.04 system, /var/log/syslog reports that it is starting the fingerprint authentication daemon:

    is a different issue. I would consider that a different bug:

    Error messages from fprintd service are logged even when USEFPRINTD=no has been configured into /etc/sysconfig/authconfig.

    Even after authconfig --disablefingerprint --update.

    To remove it:

    sudo apt purge fprintd
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