Fedora – How to lock screen on lid closing using systemd

fedoralogindswaysystemdwayland

I am running Sway on Fedora 26 and want my laptop to be locked when I close my screen. I changed HandleLidSwitch to lock in /etc/systemd/logind.conf and ran systemctl restart systemd-logind after that. However, closing the lid does nothing.

The lock program I intend to use is Swaylock and I can manually call it by runnig the command swaylock in a terminal.

How do I make Systemd call swaylock when it tries to close the screen (as instructed to do in logind.conf)?

Best Answer

Target

If the HandleLidSwitch is set to sleep, you can create a new systemd service with sleep target, and thus your service will be executed when the sleep is called (lid closed) here is an example with power target.. update that to sleep.

Command on lock

This question explain how to run a command when the lock screen is enabled

Screen saver

You can use a bash to watch for screen saver if you want to trigger that when the screen saver is enabled it's explained here

Related Solutions

Arch Linux Systemd – Suspend and Lock Screen on Lid Close

There are a couple of examples in the Arch Wiki.

Basically, it involves creating a service file for your screen locker and ensuring it is hooked to either the suspend, hibernate or sleep targets.

If you use a simple screen locker like slock, /etc/systemd/system/lock.service would look like this:

[Unit]
Description=Lock the screen on resume from suspend

[Service]
User=jason
Environment=DISPLAY=:0
ExecStart=/usr/bin/slock

[Install]
WantedBy=suspend.target

Other examples on the wiki have more complex options, including shutting down and bringing up other services, etc.

Fedora – Can not suspend when lid closed, even if external display is connected

Assuming the laptop's also plugged into external power; you'd also need to explicitly add the following to /etc/systemd/logind.conf:

HandleLidSwitchExternalPower=suspend

Per man logind.conf

HandleLidSwitchExternalPower= is completely ignored by default (for backwards compatibility) — an explicit value must be set before it will be used to determine behaviour.

If the system is inserted in a docking station, or if more than one display is connected, the action specified by HandleLidSwitchDocked= occurs; if the system is on external power the action (if any) specified by HandleLidSwitchExternalPower= occurs; otherwise the HandleLidSwitch= action occurs.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Arch Linux Systemd – Suspend and Lock Screen on Lid Close

Fedora – Can not suspend when lid closed, even if external display is connected

Related Question