Provided by: autosuspend_4.0.1-1_all 
NAME
autosuspend.conf - autosuspend config file Documentation
SYNOPSIS
/etc/autosuspend.conf
GENERAL CONFIGURATION
Configures the autosuspend daemon.
Configuration file
Syntax
The autosuspend configuration file uses INI syntax and needs to be processable by the Python configparser
<https://docs.python.org/3/library/configparser.html> module.
A simple configuration file could look like:
[general]
interval = 30
idle_time = 900
suspend_cmd = /usr/bin/systemctl suspend
wakeup_cmd = echo {timestamp:.0f} > /sys/class/rtc/rtc0/wakealarm
notify_cmd_wakeup = su myuser -c notify-send -a autosuspend 'Suspending the system. Wake up at {iso}'
notify_cmd_no_wakeup = su myuser -c notify-send -a autosuspend 'Suspending the system.'
lock_file = /var/lock/autosuspend.lock
lock_timeout = 30
[check.Ping]
enabled = false
hosts = 192.168.0.7
[check.RemoteUsers]
class = Users
enabled = true
name = .*
terminal = .*
host = [0-9].*
[wakeup.File]
enabled = True
path = /var/run/autosuspend/wakeup
The configuration file consists of a [general] section, which specifies general processing options, and
multiple sections of the format [check.*] and [wakeup.*]. These sections describe the activity and wake
up checks to execute.
General configuration
The [general] section contains options controlling the overall behavior of the autosuspend daemon. These
are:
interval
The time to wait after executing all checks in seconds.
idle_time
The required amount of time in seconds with no detected activity before the host will be
suspended. Default: 300 seconds
min_sleep_time
The minimal amount of time in seconds the system has to sleep for actually triggering suspension.
If a scheduled wake up results in an effective time below this value, the system will not sleep.
Default: 1200 seconds
wakeup_delta
Wake up the system this amount of seconds earlier than the time that was determined for an event
that requires the system to be up. This value adds a safety margin for the time a the wake up
effectively takes. Default: 30 seconds
suspend_cmd
The command to execute in case the host shall be suspended. This line can contain additional
command line arguments to the command to execute.
wakeup_cmd
The command to execute for scheduling a wake up of the system. The given string is processed
using Python's str.format() and a format argument called timestamp encodes the UTC timestamp of
the planned wake up time (float). Additionally iso can be used to acquire the timestamp in ISO
8601 format.
notify_cmd_wakeup
A command to execute before the system is going to suspend for the purpose of notifying interested
clients. This command is only called in case a wake up is scheduled. The given string is
processed using Python's str.format() and a format argument called timestamp encodes the UTC
timestamp of the planned wake up time (float). Additionally iso can be used to acquire the
timestamp in ISO 8601 format. If empty or not specified, no command will be called.
notify_cmd_no_wakeup
A command to execute before the system is going to suspend for the purpose of notifying interested
clients. This command is only called in case NO wake up is scheduled. Hence, no string
formatting options are available. If empty or not specified, no command will be called.
woke_up_file
Location of a file that indicates to autosuspend that the computer has suspended since the last
time checks were executed. This file is usually created by a systemd
<https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/> service. Thus, changing the location also
requires adapting the respective service. Refer to systemd-integration for further details.
lock_file
Location of a file that is used to synchronize the continuously running daemon and the systemd
callback.
lock_timeout
Timeout in seconds used when trying to acquire the lock. This should be longer than the maximum
run time of all configured checks. In the worst cases, suspending the system is delayed by this
amount of time because presuspend hook has to wait before all checks have passed.
Activity check configuration
For each activity check to execute, a section with the name format [check.*] needs to be created. Each
check has a name and an executing class which implements the behavior. The fraction of the section name
check. determines the name, and in case no class option is given inside the section, also the class which
implements the check. In case the class option is specified, the name is completely user-defined and the
same check can even be instantiated multiple times with differing names.
For each check, these generic options can be specified:
class Name of the class implementing the check. If the name does not contain a dot (.), this is assumed
to be one of the checks provided by autosuspend internally. Otherwise, this can be used to pull
in third-party checks. If this option is not specified, the section name must represent a valid
internal check class.
enabled
Needs to be true for a check to actually execute. false is assumed if not specified.
Furthermore, each check might have custom options.
Wake up check configuration
Wake up checks uses the same configuration logic as the previously described activity checks. However,
the configuration file sections start with wakeup. instead of check..
For options of individual checks, please refer to available-checks and available-wakeups.
AVAILABLE ACTIVITY CHECK
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 <https://icalendar.readthedocs.io> 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
• requests <https://pypi.python.org/pypi/requests>
• icalendar <https://icalendar.readthedocs.io>
• dateutil <https://dateutil.readthedocs.io>
• tzlocal <https://pypi.org/project/tzlocal/>
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:
• external-command-activity-scripts for a collection of user-provided scripts for some common use
cases.
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 <https://goessner.net/articles/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 <https://goessner.net/articles/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
• requests <https://pypi.python.org/pypi/requests>
• jsonpath-ng <https://github.com/h2non/jsonpath-ng>
Kodi
Checks whether an instance of Kodi <https://kodi.tv/> 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
• requests <https://pypi.python.org/pypi/requests>
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
• requests <https://pypi.python.org/pypi/requests>
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
<https://dateutil.readthedocs.io/en/stable/parser.html#dateutil.parser.parse>.
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
• dateutil <https://dateutil.readthedocs.io>
• pytz <https://pythonhosted.org/pytz/>
Load
Checks whether the system load 5 <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Load_(computing)> 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
<https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/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
• dbus-python <https://cgit.freedesktop.org/dbus/dbus-python/>
Mpd
Checks whether an instance of MPD <http://www.musicpd.org/> 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
• python-mpd2 <https://pypi.python.org/pypi/python-mpd2>
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 <https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/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
• dbus-python <https://cgit.freedesktop.org/dbus/dbus-python/> for the logind method
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 <https://www.w3.org/TR/xpath/> expression and in case
the expression matches, the system is assumed to be active.
Some common applications and their respective configuration are:
tvheadend <https://tvheadend.org/>
The required URL for tvheadend <https://tvheadend.org/> 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 <https://kodi.tv/>, increase the 0 to 1.
Plex <https://www.plex.tv/>
For Plex <https://www.plex.tv/>, 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 <https://support.plex.tv/articles/204059436-finding-
an-authentication-token-x-plex-token/>.
If suspending should be prevented in case of any activity, this simple XPath
<https://www.w3.org/TR/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
• requests <https://pypi.python.org/pypi/requests>
• lxml <http://lxml.de/>
AVAILABLE WAKEUP CHECK
Available wake up checks
The following checks for wake up times are currently implemented. Each of the checks is described with
its available configuration options and required optional dependencies.
Calendar
Determines next wake up time from an iCalendar <https://icalendar.readthedocs.io> file. The next event
that starts after the current time is chosen as the next wake up time.
Remember that updates to the calendar can only be reflected in case the system currently running.
Changes to the calendar made while the system is sleeping will obviously not trigger an earlier wake up.
Options
url The URL to query for the XML reply.
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.
xpath The XPath query to execute. Must always return number strings or nothing.
timeout
Timeout for executed requests in seconds. Default: 5.
Requirements
• requests <https://pypi.python.org/pypi/requests>
• icalendar <https://icalendar.readthedocs.io>
• dateutil <https://dateutil.readthedocs.io>
• tzlocal <https://pypi.org/project/tzlocal/>
Command
Determines the wake up time by calling an external command The command always has to succeed. If
something is printed on stdout by the command, this has to be the next wake up time in UTC seconds.
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
File
Determines the wake up time by reading a file from a configured location. The file has to contains the
planned wake up time as an int or float in seconds UTC.
Options
path path of the file to read in case it is present
Periodic
Always schedules a wake up at a specified delta from now on. Can be used to let the system wake up every
once in a while, for instance, to refresh the calendar used in the Calendar check.
Options
unit A string indicating in which unit the delta is specified. Valid options are: microseconds,
milliseconds, seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks.
value The value of the delta as an int.
XPath
A generic check which queries a configured URL and expects the reply to contain XML data. The returned
XML document is parsed using a configured XPath <https://www.w3.org/TR/xpath/> expression that has to
return timestamps UTC (as strings, not elements). These are interpreted as the wake up times. In case
multiple entries exist, the soonest one is used.
Options
url The URL to query for the XML reply.
xpath The XPath query to execute. Must always return number strings or nothing.
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.
XPathDelta
Comparable to XPath, but expects that the returned results represent the wake up time as a delta to the
current time in a configurable unit.
This check can for instance be used for tvheadend <https://tvheadend.org/> with the following expression:
//recording/next/text()
Options
url The URL to query for the XML reply.
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.
xpath The XPath query to execute. Must always return number strings or nothing.
timeout
Timeout for executed requests in seconds. Default: 5.
unit A string indicating in which unit the delta is specified. Valid options are: microseconds,
milliseconds, seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks. Default: minutes
AUTHOR
Johannes Wienke
COPYRIGHT
2021, Johannes Wienke