Configure FingerPrint Reader

Hardly seen on desktops but now available on a lot of laptops are fingerprint readers. It was once a pain to get them to work in linux. Thankfully things have changed and it only takes a couple commands to get up and running

Check You Have A Fingerprint Reader Installed

You can tell visually the hardware exists but to make sure linux is seeing it...

lsusb

You should get an output similiar to the following

Bus 001 Device 006: ID 138a:0008 Validity Sensors, Inc. VFS300 Fingerprint Reader

Install The PPA

Run the following 3 commands to install the software respository

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:fingerprint/fprint sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install libpam-fprintd

Check Installation

To make sure all the modules are set up right run the following...

grep fprint /etc/pam.d/common-auth

You should get something similiar to the following

auth [success=3 default=ignore] pam_fprintd.so

Configure Your Fingerprint

Your all set now you need to tell the system your fingerprint, the following 2 commands set your fingerprint then it verifies it.

fprintd-enroll fprintd-verify

You should receive similiar to the following output

user#system ~ $ fprintd-enroll Using device /net/reactivated/Fprint/Device/0 Enrolling right index finger. Enroll result: enroll-stage-passed Enroll result: enroll-stage-passed Enroll result: enroll-stage-passed Enroll result: enroll-stage-passed Enroll result: enroll-stage-passed Enroll result: enroll-stage-passed Enroll result: enroll-completed user#system ~ $ user#system ~ $ fprintd-verify Using device /net/reactivated/Fprint/Device/0 Listing enrolled fingers: - #0: right-index-finger Verify result: verify-match (done)

Anytime you need to provide your password such as login or using sudo you can now use your fingerprint!!!