How to make LightDM suspend to RAM automatically from the login screen and lock screen in Lubuntu 18.04

My family’s desktop machine has Lubuntu 18.04 installed, which generally works well. Each family member has their own account, therefore the installation is a single-seat, multi-user system. Lubuntu 18.04 uses LightDM for the display manager, light-locker (which uses LightDM) for the screen locker, and Xfce Power Manager for power management. Xfce Power Manager enables each user to specify for their session that the machine will suspend to RAM, and to configure the duration of inactivity in their session that will trigger suspension.

However, a couple of things about this arrangement are annoying. Firstly, if two or more users happen to be logged-in simultaneously because a family member does not bother to log out, Xfce Power Manager in an inactive session will eventually suspend the machine even when another user is actively using a different session. Secondly, if nobody is logged-in and the LightDM greeter screen is displayed, the machine will not suspend to RAM automatically after a period of inactivity. The only way to get the machine to suspend to RAM if nobody is logged-in is to click on the power indicator in the greeter’s system tray and select ‘Suspend’ from the drop-down menu.

I still have not figured out how to fix the first of the above-mentioned problems, but a Web search finally turned up a fix for the second problem: a post by Linux user boyi in Arch Linux Forums thread ‘need lightdm to suspend system‘. Below I explain how I implemented this in my family’s Lubuntu 18.04 installation. Basically, when the LightDM greeter screen is displayed LightDM runs a looping shell script (lightdm_sleep.sh) that will suspend the machine after a specified time has elapsed, and either logging in or unlocking the screen will run another shell script (lightdm_kill_sleep.sh) that kills the first script. Once a user has either logged in or unlocked the screen, Xfce Power Manager in that user’s session takes over monitoring activity.

1. Pre-existing situation
When I originally installed Lubuntu 18.04 I made sure each user used the Xfce Power Manager GUI to configure suspension to RAM. Each user’s own settings are shown below:

user $ cat ~/.config/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml/xfce4-power-manager.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<channel name="xfce4-power-manager" version="1.0">
  <property name="xfce4-power-manager" type="empty">
    <property name="power-button-action" type="uint" value="3"/>
    <property name="show-tray-icon" type="bool" value="true"/>
    <property name="brightness-switch-restore-on-exit" type="int" value="1"/>
    <property name="brightness-switch" type="int" value="0"/>
    <property name="presentation-mode" type="bool" value="false"/>
    <property name="inactivity-on-ac" type="uint" value="30"/>
    <property name="blank-on-ac" type="int" value="10"/>
    <property name="dpms-on-ac-sleep" type="uint" value="0"/>
    <property name="dpms-on-ac-off" type="uint" value="0"/>
    <property name="brightness-on-ac" type="uint" value="9"/>
    <property name="lock-screen-suspend-hibernate" type="bool" value="true"/>
    <property name="logind-handle-lid-switch" type="bool" value="false"/>
    <property name="dpms-enabled" type="bool" value="false"/>
    <property name="general-notification" type="bool" value="true"/>
    <property name="sleep-button-action" type="uint" value="3"/>
    <property name="hibernate-button-action" type="uint" value="3"/>
  </property>
</channel>

Note that each user must not edit their file ~/.config/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml/xfce4-power-manager.xml directly, as the properties in the Xfce Power Manager settings GUI will not be updated if they do. Users must either use the Xfce Power Manager settings GUI or use xfconf-query commands on the command line as explained on the askubuntu Web page ‘Change xfce4-power-manager option from terminal‘.

The LightDM configuration files in /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/ were as follows:

user $ ls /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/
05_lubuntu.conf  10_lubuntu.conf  unmount_FREECOM_HDD.sh

The file 05_lubuntu.conf was installed when I installed Lubuntu 18.04. The two files 10_lubuntu.conf and unmount_FREECOM_HDD.sh were previously created by me in order to unmount a permanently-connected external USB HDD when a user logs out, to avoid an access problem when another user logs in (see an earlier blog post).

user $ cat /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/10_lubuntu.conf
[Seat:*]
session-cleanup-script=/etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/unmount_FREECOM_HDD.sh

2. Modifications to enable installation to suspend when no user is logged in

2.1 Specify the scripts

user $ cd /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/
user $ sudo nano 10_lubuntu.conf
user $ cat 10_lubuntu.conf 
[Seat:*]
greeter-setup-script =/etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/lightdm_sleep.sh
session-setup-script=/etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/lightdm_kill_sleep.sh
session-cleanup-script=/etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/unmount_FREECOM_HDD.sh

2.2 Create the two scripts

user $ sudo nano lightdm_sleep.sh
user $ sudo chmod +x lightdm_sleep.sh
user $ cat lightdm_sleep.sh 
#!/bin/sh
file="/tmp/unique_identifier"
(while true; do sleep 30m; systemctl suspend; done) &
echo $! > $file

user $ sudo nano lightdm_kill_sleep.sh
user $ sudo chmod +x lightdm_kill_sleep.sh
user $ cat lightdm_kill_sleep.sh 
#!/bin/sh
file="/tmp/unique_identifier"
if [ -f "$file" ]
then
    kill `cat $file`
    rm $file
fi

2.3 Modify the existing session cleanup script to include the lightdm_kill_sleep.sh code

user $ tail -n 11 unmount_FREECOM_HDD.sh
################################################
# Code below copied from lightdm_kill_sleep.sh
file="/tmp/unique_identifier"
if [ -f "$file" ]
then
    kill `cat $file`
    rm $file
fi
# End of code copied from lightdm_kill_sleep.sh
################################################
exit 0

Of course, specifying lightdm_kill_sleep.sh would have sufficed if the installation did not already have a session cleanup script:

user $ cat 10_lubuntu.conf
[Seat:*]
greeter-setup-script =/etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/lightdm_sleep.sh
session-setup-script=/etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/lightdm_kill_sleep.sh
session-cleanup-script=/etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/lightdm_kill_sleep.sh

3. Summary
Thus the file situation is now as follows:

user $ ls /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/
05_lubuntu.conf  10_lubuntu.conf  lightdm_kill_sleep.sh  lightdm_sleep.sh  unmount_FREECOM_HDD.sh

• If nobody logs in after booting the machine, the machine will suspend to RAM after 30 minutes* due to greeter-setup-script.
• If a user logs in, session-setup-script ensures only Xfce Power Manager controls suspension to RAM while the LightDM greeter screen is not displayed.
• If a user logs out and no other user is logged in, the machine will suspend to RAM after 30 minutes* due to greeter-setup-script.
• If a user locks the screen, the machine will suspend to RAM after 30 minutes* due to greeter-setup-script.

*Obviously the period of inactivity to trigger suspension to RAM can be configured by changing the time specified in the lightdm_sleep.sh script.