What actually happens after you enter your username but before the cursor moves to the password box ?

The reason for asking is sometimes we have a long delay after you enter the username before the
cursor moves to the password box. It doesn't always happen which is more puzzling.

The setup is thus:
openSuse 13.2
KDE 4.11.3
Users are on a Suse openldap server also the automount info is there as well

If you leave 'show list' checked in System Setup, as is the default, it does take ages all the time. I assume
becaise it is trying to get all the users off the ldap server and there are hundreds.
Root login is always quick

Ta

Mal

The reason for this delay is very likely due to the LDAP server, if it is quicker in responding to the query then there will be less lag. While I don't know exactly what the system is doing, it would not surprise me if it is trying to validate who the user is (likely related to the show list code, as this would be required to find the specified account in the list).

To remedy this issue, your system administrators may wish to install "nscd" which will cache name-service information such as usernames and group membership on local computers, which should speed up this process.

I am the system administrator

I thought you weren't suppose to enable user and password caching with sssd

I am beginning to think there is a problem with autofs. The one that ships with
opensuse 13.1 just doesn't work at all with ldap and the patched one I've got
is mounting home directories as soon as you enter your username and before
you enter the password - that can't be right !

This is all pretty new so might have a few quirks at the moment !

regards

Mal

The autofs issue could certainly explain the pause. I can think of two possible reasons, depending on how you setup the mounts.
1) KDM is attempting to read the user's face image, which would be located in their home directory.
2) Parts of the PAM process are being triggered when the username is entered, although this seems unlikely.

In regards to the caching - nscd does not cache passwords, it only caches name information such as username/uid/group membership lookups. I'd suggest following up on the autofs issue first though, as that seems more likely a suspect at the moment.