Available activity checks

The following checks for activity are currently implemented. Each of the is described with its available configuration options and required optional dependencies.

ActiveCalendarEvent

Checks an online iCalendar file for events that are currently running. If so, this indicates activity and prevents suspending the system. Thus, a calendar can be provided with times at which the system should not go to sleep. If this calendar resides on an online service like a groupware it might even be possible to invite the system.

Options

url

The URL to query for the iCalendar file

timeout

Timeout for executed requests in seconds. Default: 5.

username

Optional user name to use for authenticating at a server requiring authentication. If used, also a password must be provided.

password

Optional password to use for authenticating at a server requiring authentication. If used, also a user name must be provided.

ActiveConnection

Checks whether there is currently a client connected to a TCP server at certain ports. Can be used to e.g. block suspending the system in case SSH users are connected or a web server is used by clients.

Options

ports

list of comma-separated port numbers

Requirements

ExternalCommand

Executes an arbitrary command. In case this command returns 0, the system is assumed to be active.

The command is executed as is using shell execution. Beware of malicious commands in obtained configuration files.

Options

command

The command to execute including all arguments

Requirements

Kodi

Checks whether an instance of Kodi is currently playing.

Options

url

Base URL of the JSON RPC API of the Kodi instance, default: http://localhost:8080/jsonrpc

timeout

Request timeout in seconds, default: 5

username

Optional user name to use for authenticating at a server requiring authentication. If used, also a password must be provided.

password

Optional password to use for authenticating at a server requiring authentication. If used, also a user name must be provided.

Requirements

KodiIdleTime

Checks whether there has been interaction with the Kodi user interface recently. This prevents suspending the system in case someone is currently browsing collections etc. This check is redundant to XIdleTime on systems using an X server, but might be necessary in case Kodi is used standalone. It does not replace the Kodi check, as the idle time is not updated when media is playing.

Options

idle_time

Marks the system active in case a user interaction has appeared within the this amount of seconds until now. Default: 120

url

Base URL of the JSON RPC API of the Kodi instance, default: http://localhost:8080/jsonrpc

timeout

Request timeout in seconds, default: 5

username

Optional user name to use for authenticating at a server requiring authentication. If used, also a password must be provided.

password

Optional password to use for authenticating at a server requiring authentication. If used, also a user name must be provided.

Requirements

Load

Checks whether the system load 5 is below a certain value.

Options

threshold

a float for the maximum allowed load value, default: 2.5

Requirements

LogindSessionsIdle

Prevents suspending in case IdleHint for one of the running sessions logind sessions is set to no. Support for setting this hint currently varies greatly across display managers, screen lockers etc. Thus, check exactly whether the hint is set on your system via loginctl show-session.

Options

types

A comma-separated list of sessions types to inspect for activity. The check ignores sessions of other types. Default: tty, x11, wayland

states

A comma-separated list of session states to inspect. For instance, lingering sessions used for background programs might not be of interest. Default: active, online

Requirements

Mpd

Checks whether an instance of MPD is currently playing music.

Options

host

Host containing the MPD daemon, default: localhost

port

Port to connect to the MPD daemon, default: 6600

timeout

Request timeout in seconds, default: 5

Requirements

NetworkBandwidth

Checks whether more network bandwidth is currently being used than specified. A set of specified interfaces is checked in this regard, each of the individually, based on the average bandwidth on that interface. This average is based on the global checking interval specified in the configuration file via the interval option.

Options

interfaces

Comma-separated list of network interfaces to check

threshold_send <byte/s>

If the average sending bandwidth of one of the specified interfaces is above this threshold, then activity is detected. Specified in bytes/s, default: 100

threshold_receive <byte/s>

If the average receive bandwidth of one of the specified interfaces is above this threshold, then activity is detected. Specified in bytes/s, default: 100

Requirements

Ping

Checks whether one or more hosts answer to ICMP requests.

Options

hosts

Comma-separated list of host names or IPs.

Requirements

Processes

If currently running processes match an expression, the suspend will be blocked. You might use this to hinder the system from suspending when for example your rsync runs.

Options

processes

list of comma-separated process names to check for

Requirements

Smb

Any active Samba connection will block suspend.

Options

smbstatus

executable needs to be present.

Requirements

Users

Checks whether a user currently logged in at the system matches several criteria. All provided criteria must match to indicate activity on the host.

Options

All regular expressions are applied against the full string. Capturing substrings needs to be explicitly enabled using wildcard matching.

name

A regular expression specifying which users to capture, default: .*.

terminal

A regular expression specifying the terminal on which the user needs to be logged in, default: .*.

host

A regular expression specifying the host from which a user needs to be logged in, default: .*.

Requirements

XIdleTime

Checks whether all active local X displays have been idle for a sufficiently long time. Determining which X11 sessions currently exist on a running system is a harder problem than one might expect. Sometimes, the server runs as root, sometimes under the real user, and many other configuration variants exist. Thus, multiple sources for active X serer instances are implemented for this check, each of them having different requirements and limitations. They can be changed using the provided configuration option.

Options

timeout

required idle time in seconds

method

The method to use for acquiring running X sessions. Valid options are sockets and logind. The default is sockets.

sockets
Uses the X server sockets files found in /tmp/.X11-unix. This method requires that all X server instances run with user permissions and not as root.
logind
Uses logind to obtain the running X server instances. This does not support manually started servers.
ignore_if_process

A regular expression to match against the process names executed by each X session owner. In case the use has a running process that matches this expression, the X idle time is ignored and the check continues as if there was no activity. This can be useful in case of processes which inevitably tinker with the idle time.

ignore_users

Do not check sessions of users matching this regular expressions.

Requirements

XPath

A generic check which queries a configured URL and expects the reply to contain XML data. The returned XML document is checked against a configured XPath expression and in case the expression matches, the system is assumed to be active.

Some common applications and their respective configuration are:

tvheadend

The required URL for tvheadend is (if running on the same host):

http://127.0.0.1:9981/status.xml

In case you want to prevent suspending in case there are active subscriptions or recordings, use the following XPath:

/currentload/subscriptions[number(.) > 0] | /currentload/recordings/recording/start

If you have a permantently running subscriber like Kodi, increase the 0 to 1.

Plex

For Plex, use the following URL (if running on the same host):

http://127.0.0.1:32400/status/sessions/?X-Plex-Token={TOKEN}

Where acquiring the token is documented here.

If suspending should be prevented in case of any activity, this simple XPath expression will suffice:

/MediaContainer[@size > 2]

Options

url

The URL to query for the XML reply.

xpath

The XPath query to execute. In case it returns a result, the system is assumed to be active.

timeout

Timeout for executed requests in seconds. Default: 5.

username

Optional user name to use for authenticating at a server requiring authentication. If used, also a password must be provided.

password

Optional password to use for authenticating at a server requiring authentication. If used, also a user name must be provided.

Requirements