You can configure the Login window in several ways:
Enabling Automatic LoginWhen you started Mac OS X for the first time, you were in the Automatic Login mode. In this mode, you don't have to enter login information; Mac OS X does it for you. This means that you don't have to enter a username and password each time that you start or restart your machine; the machine starts up just as Macs running previous versions of the operating system do. CAUTION You should enable Automatic Login mode only if you are the only person who uses your Mac. If you enable Automatic Login mode with the Administrator account, you provide access to many of your system's resources; this is an unsecured way to operate. However, if you have a Mac in a secure location and are the only person who uses it, the Automatic Login mode eliminates the need to log in every time you start or restart the machine. TIP If you are going to enable Automatic Login mode, create a non-Administrator account to use. That way, even if someone does get access to your Mac, they won't be able to use the Administrator account. Of course, you might have to log out and then log back in as the Administrator, but this strategy provides a good compromise between security and convenience. To configure the Automatic Login mode, use the following steps:
The next time you start or restart your Mac, the account you specified will be automatically logged in and you will move directly to the desktop for that account. This setting affects only the start or restart sequence. When you log out instead of shutting down or restarting, you will still see the Login window again and will have to log in to resume using the Mac. To disable automatic login again, uncheck the "Log in automatically as username" check box on the Accounts pane. Controlling How User Accounts Appear in the Login WindowYou can configure several aspects of how user accounts appear in the Login window.
Disabling the Restart and Shut Down ButtonsIf you enable Automatic Login mode, you might run into trouble if you leave the Restart and Shut Down buttons enabled. Here's how that could happen. Say you are using your Mac, and decide that you want to take a break for a while, but there are people in your area whom you don't want to be able to use the machine while you step away. You log out, and your machine is protected, right? Not necessarily. If the Restart and Shut Down buttons are enabled, someone can restart the Mac from the Login window and then it would start up in the automatic account giving the person access to the machine. Disabling these buttons prevents someone from using them to access an account that is automatically logged into. NOTE The previous scenario might make you pause to ask a question before you enable Automatic Login mode. If you do disable the Restart and Shut Down buttons and then log out, can someone simply press the hardware Restart or Reset button on the CPU to start up the Mac to automatically log in to the automatic login account? This would bypass the protection offered by disabling the buttons, right? Nope; when the Mac is not shut down properly (by using the Shut Down command), the automatic login feature is disabled when the machine is started or restarted the next time. So, if you have to use one of those buttons, you will have to log in the next time you start or restart the machine.
When the Login window appears, these buttons will be inactive; the only way to use the Mac will be to log in under a valid account. Enabling the Password HintWhen you created a user account, you were able to enter a password hint. By default, this hint will appear if the user is unsuccessful in logging in after three attempts. If you don't want these hints to be shown, uncheck the "Show Password Hint After 3 Attempts to Enter a Password" check box in the Login Options tab of the Accounts pane in the System Preferences utility. |