Systemd Linger
4 hours ago
- Systemd's KillUserProcesses option can kill user processes on logout, but Debian's default allows processes to keep running.
- Enabling KillUserProcesses can help manage lingering KDE services, reducing the need for rebooting.
- The linger feature is not required for screen/tmux/nohup in Debian, contrary to common belief.
- Users can enable or disable linger for their own account using 'loginctl enable-linger' or 'loginctl disable-linger'.
- Root can enable or disable linger for other users with 'loginctl enable-linger $ACCOUNT'.
- There is no documented way to list accounts with linger enabled, but 'ls /var/lib/systemd/linger' works.
- On Debian, with default settings, processes are not killed on logout, and linger only starts programs before login.
- Enabling linger can automatically connect to WiFi on boot, allowing SSH access even before X11/Wayland login is ready.
- Linger can be left enabled to start background processes like Pipewire and Bluetooth before login.