xautolock: how to auto-unlock on user activity?

Question

I need to run a script after a period of user inactivity. For that I use the wonderful program xautolock.

Now, I also need to run another script when the activity is resumed (e.g. mouse is moved or a key is pressed).

How do I do that? Any sort of an anti-xautolock? An xautoUNlock?

Or, perhaps, any other easy way to catch the moment when the "idleness" stops?

Why would you want a screen locker that doesn't require unlocking? Just use a screensaver. — jasonwryan, Nov 14 '13 at 01:33
xscreensaver will do just as you want, you don't need xautolock — number5, Nov 14 '13 at 01:35
I need to run a pair of custom scripts: the first is run after the idle timeout (i.e. in place of a regular screensaver) and the 2nd is run when activity is resumed. — Alexander Shcheblikin, Nov 14 '13 at 01:38
OK, I figured I could configure xscreensaver to launch an arbitrary program (and have it killed on user activity) but how do I tell the xscreensaver not to blank the screen and have the screen updated as per normal? — Alexander Shcheblikin, Nov 14 '13 at 15:07

score 2 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:40

I wrote the following script to check for idle and update the session idle status with systemd-logind accordingly. (Normally this would be done by the session manager, but I don't run one.) This lets systemd put the system to sleep automatically (based on IdleAction and IdleActionSec in /etc/systemd/logind.conf), with consideration of both X11 and ssh logins when determining whether the system is idle. Based partly on this and this.

You could modify the login1_idle class to run whatever scripts you want.

#!/usr/bin/python

import ctypes
import os
import dbus
import time

# Timing parameters, in s
idle_threshold = 60 # Amount of idle time required to consider things truly idle
check_interval = 50 # How often to check the X server idle indication

class login1_idle:
  def __init__(self):
    self.flag = 0
    bus = dbus.SystemBus()
    seat = bus.get_object('org.freedesktop.login1',
                          '/org/freedesktop/login1/seat/'
                           + os.environ['XDG_SEAT'])
    active_session = seat.Get('org.freedesktop.login1.Seat',
                              'ActiveSession',
                              dbus_interface='org.freedesktop.DBus.Properties')
    session_obj_path = active_session[1]
    self.session = bus.get_object('org.freedesktop.login1', session_obj_path);

  def on_busy(self):
    self.flag = 0
    self.session.SetIdleHint(False,
                             dbus_interface='org.freedesktop.login1.Session')

  def on_idle(self):
    self.flag = 1
    self.session.SetIdleHint(True,
                             dbus_interface='org.freedesktop.login1.Session')

class XScreenSaverInfo(ctypes.Structure):
  """ typedef struct { ... } XScreenSaverInfo; """
  _fields_ = [('window',      ctypes.c_ulong), # screen saver window
              ('state',       ctypes.c_int),   # off,on,disabled
              ('kind',        ctypes.c_int),   # blanked,internal,external
              ('since',       ctypes.c_ulong), # milliseconds
              ('idle',        ctypes.c_ulong), # milliseconds
              ('event_mask',  ctypes.c_ulong)] # events

xlib = ctypes.cdll.LoadLibrary('libX11.so')
display = xlib.XOpenDisplay(os.environ['DISPLAY'])
xss = ctypes.cdll.LoadLibrary('libXss.so.1')
xss.XScreenSaverAllocInfo.restype = ctypes.POINTER(XScreenSaverInfo)
xssinfo = xss.XScreenSaverAllocInfo()

idle = login1_idle()

while True:
  xss.XScreenSaverQueryInfo(display, xlib.XDefaultRootWindow(display), xssinfo)

  #print "idle: %d ms" % xssinfo.contents.idle

  if xssinfo.contents.idle > idle_threshold * 1000 and not idle.flag:
    print time.strftime('%c') + " doing on_idle"
    idle.on_idle()

  elif xssinfo.contents.idle < idle_threshold * 1000 and idle.flag:
    print time.strftime('%c') + " doing on_busy"
    idle.on_busy()

  #print idle.session.Get('org.freedesktop.login1.Session',
  #                       'IdleHint',
  #                       dbus_interface='org.freedesktop.DBus.Properties')

  time.sleep(check_interval)

Another similar question with a C/bash implementation is Run a command when system is idle and when is active again.

xautolock: how to auto-unlock on user activity?

1 Answers1