loginctl enable-linger/disable-linger … but reading linger-status?

Question

I know how to enable/disable lingering with loginctl.

But up to now I found no way to query the status of a user.

I want to know: Is lingering enable for user foo?

How can I access this information?

Markus Kuhn · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-10 12:02:54Z

You can show a list of lingering users with

ls /var/lib/systemd/linger

because

loginctl enable-linger $USER
loginctl disable-linger $USER

do the equivalent of

touch /var/lib/systemd/linger/$USER
rm /var/lib/systemd/linger/$USER

bulletmark · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-04 00:50:02Z

8

loginctl user-status foo shows linger status.

answered May 4 '17 at 0:50

bulletmark

891 bronze badge

2

I am unsure if this really works. Some minutes ago this printed a tree for a test-user which has not lingering enabled. Now, some minutes later, the output is "Failed to get user: No user '1003' known or logged in". I will use the solution from Markus Kuhn (check if file /var/lib/systemd/linger/$USER exists) – guettli Aug 15 '17 at 9:05

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Xorax · Accepted Answer · 2019-01-03 15:45:31Z

3

The best I found for check it in scripts (programmatically):

loginctl show-user $USER --property=Linger 2>/dev/null | grep -q 'yes'

answered Jan 3 at 15:45

Xorax

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Why not use this: "check the existance of /var/lib/systemd/linger"? – guettli Jan 4 at 9:30
2

Because it's more subject to changes without notice. – Xorax Jan 8 at 14:31

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3 Answers 3