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.

Requirements#

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.

See also

Options#

command#

The command to execute including all arguments

Requirements#

JsonPath#

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

Options#

url#

The URL to query for the XML reply.

jsonpath#

The JSONPath 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#

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.

suspend_while_paused#

Also suspend the system when media playback is paused instead of only suspending when playback is stopped. Default: false

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#

LastLogActivity#

Parses a log file and uses the most recent time contained in the file to determine activity. For this purpose, the log file lines are iterated from the back until a line matching a configurable regular expression is found. This expression is used to extract the contained timestamp in that log line, which is then compared to the current time with an allowed delta. The check only looks at the first line from the back that contains a timestamp. Further lines are ignored. A typical use case for this check would be a web server access log file.

This check supports all date formats that are supported by the dateutil parser.

Options#

log_file#

path to the log file that should be analyzed

pattern#

A regular expression used to determine whether a line of the log file contains a timestamp to look at. The expression must contain exactly one matching group. For instance, ^\[(.*)\] .*$ might be used to find dates in square brackets at line beginnings.

minutes#

The number of minutes to allow log file timestamps to be in the past for detecting activity. If a timestamp is older than <now> - <minutes> no activity is detected. default: 10

encoding#

The encoding with which to parse the log file. default: ascii

timezone#

The timezone to assume in case a timestamp extracted from the log file has not associated timezone information. Timezones are expressed using the names from the Olson timezone database (e.g. Europe/Berlin). default: UTC

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

classes#

A comma-separated list of session classes to inspect. For instance, greeter sessions used by greeters such as lightdm might not be of interest. Default: user

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.

Note

This check assumes stable network interface names. If this is not the case for your system, consider adding the required udev rules to ensure persistent device names. The Archlinux Wiki page on network configuration explains the necessary configuration steps.

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.

To find the applicable values for a given scenario on a system, use the following command:

$ python3 -c "import psutil; print(psutil.users())"
[suser(name='someone', terminal='tty7', host='', started=1670269568.0, pid=77179)]

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. Users logged in locally on the machine are usually reported with an empty string as the host value. In case this check should only match local users, use ^$ as the value for this option. default: .* (i.e. accept users from any host).

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#