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NAME
console-kit-daemon - ConsoleKit daemon
SYNOPSIS
console-kit-daemon [--debug] [--help] [--no-daemon] [--timed-exit]
DESCRIPTION
console-kit-daemon is a service for defining and tracking users, login
sessions and seats. It provides interfaces for managing switching
sessions and session migration when using mechanisms such as Virtual
Terminals (VT). ConsoleKit provides a number of interfaces to specify
what displays are managed by the display manager, and how.
ConsoleKit maintains a database of which users are logged into the
system. ConsoleKit groups sessions by seats which represent a set of
hardware (usually a keyboard and mouse). Other process communicate
with ConsoleKit via D-Bus.
One session leader process is responsible for asking console-kit-daemon
to open a new session. In the typical case, the session leader would
be a ConsoleKit enabled display manager, such as GDM. This leader
makes a connection to the D-Bus system bus and asks console-kit-daemon
to open a session when needed.
If the operation succeeds, console-kit-daemon will return a cookie to
the session leader. The session leader should store this variable in
the environment as XDG_SESSION_COOKIE so that it may be shared with its
child processes. The environment variable contains the UUID used to
tie processes to a session.
At this point the session will be registered with ConsoleKit and a
particular set of information about the session will be stored along
with it.
The Session will remain open until the Session Leader disconnects from
the D-Bus system bus. The session will be removed from its seat, and
deregistered.
Various other programs need to know information about running user
sessions, such as the Fast User Switch Applet and other mechanisms for
switching the console to use a different VT display. Such programs
make use of ConsoleKit interfaces to determine if user switching is
supported and to manage the switching of different sessions on the same
seat.
ConsoleKit provides a pam_ck_connector so that non-graphical logins
(e.g. telnet, ssh, etc.) are registered with ConsoleKit. This
functionality works if this PAM module is enabled in the pam.conf(4)
configuration. Thus ConsoleKit can be used as a utmp/wtmp replacement
since it stores a superset of the information as in the utmp/wtmp
database.
The ConsoleKit database is stored in the file
/var/run/ConsoleKit/database. It stores information about active
Seats, Sessions, and the current SessionLeader.
OPTIONS
-h, --help
Display detailed usage message.
--no-daemon
Avoid starting console-kit-daemon as a daemon.
Useful for debugging.
--timed-exit
Exit after 30 seconds. Useful for debugging.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
See environ(5) for descriptions of environment variables.
DISPLAY
This environment variable corresponds to the Xserver display value
associated with the ConsoleKit session.
XDG_SESSION_COOKIE
ConsoleKit provides this environment variable to the session
leader. The session leader is expected to ensure this is set for
the session process started. It contains a UUID used to tie the
processes to the session. This is used to support user switching
on displays that support it (currently only graphical VT displays
on the console).
XDG_RUNTIME_DIR
The XDG_RUNTIME_DIR defines the base directory to which user-
specific files and objects should be stored. The XDG_RUNTIME_DIR is
the same for all sessions of the same user and will be
automatically removed once the last session of the user is closed.
The following environment variables are set when console-kit-daemon
runs the run-seat.d scripts. These values correspond to those values
returned by the ck-list-session(1) utility.
CK_SESSION_SEAT_ID
The seat ID associated with the session.
CK_SESSION_SEAT_UID
The user id associated with the session
CK_SESSION_X11_DISPLAY_DEVICE
The value of the display device that the X11 display for the
session is connected to. If there is no x11-display set, then this
value is undefined.
CK_SESSION_X11_DISPLAY
The value of the X11 DISPLAY environment variable for this session
if one is present.
CK_SESSION_REMOTE_HOST_NAME
If the session is not local, the value is the host name associated
with the session. If the session is local, the value is empty.
CK_SESSION_IS_ACTIVE
The value is "TRUE" if the session is active on the seat to which
it is attached, and "FALSE" otherwise.
CK_SESSION_IS_LOCAL
The value is "TRUE" if the session is local, and "FALSE" if remote.
CK_SESSION_IS_DYNAMIC
The value is "TRUE" if the session was started with ck-seat-tool,
and "FALSE" otherwise.
EXTENDED DESCRIPTION
ConsoleKit Seat Configuration
ConsoleKit seat configuration files are located in the
/etc/ConsoleKit/seats.d directory. Each seat configuration file ends
with the .seat suffix. ConsoleKit provides a default seat file named
00-primary.seat. Additional seat configuration files may be added.
These files are in standard INI format.
The settings below are in "group/key=default_value" format, and show
the default values of the 00-primary.seat file. For example, to
specify a different "Seat Entry/Name" value, you would modify the this
file so it contains these lines:
[Seat Entry]
[...]
of the configuration file format used. Currently only the value
"1.0" is supported.
Seat Entry/Name=Primary seat
Name of the seat.
Seat Entry/ID=StaticSeat
Specifies the unique ID of the seat. If the value is NULL, then
console-kit-daemon will provide a value. The ID may only contain
the ASCII characters [A-Z][a=z][0-9]_".
Seat Entry/Hidden=false
If this value is set to "false", then ConsoleKit will create this
seat. Otherwise, the seat will not be created.
Seat Entry/Devices
This value is not currently supported. In the future, it is
planned that ConsoleKit will provide the ability to manage how
device permissions are managed, and this key is a placeholder.
Seat Entry/Sessions=Local
List of sessions to start on the seat, separated by the ";"
character. Each session must be defined in a ConsoleKit session
configuration file named
/etc/ConsoleKit/sessions.d/sessions.session where sessions is the
value of this key.
ConsoleKit Session Configuration
ConsoleKit session configuration files are located in the
/etc/ConsoleKit/sessions.d directory. Each session configuration file
ends with the .session suffix. Additional seat configuration files may
be added. These files are in standard INI format.
The settings below are in "group/key" format, so to specify the
"Session Entry/Name" value, the file shoulld contain these lines:
[Session Entry]
[...]
Name=Customized Session
The following keys are supported for configuring ConsoleKit sessions:
Type of the session
Session Entry/Description
Description of the session.
Session Entry/DisplayTemplate
This specifies the display type to be used with the session. This
corresponds to the file
/etc/ConsoleKit/displays.d/display_template.display where
display_template is the value of this key.
Local/variable
The ConsoleKit display configuration file associated with the
"Entry/DisplayTemplate" key specifies the command to run to launch
the display. This command is defined in the ConsoleKit display
configuration file in the key "X11/Exec". This command can include
variables that begin with the "$" character, such as "$display".
The values to be used for these variables can be defined in this
section. So if the session configuration file contains the value
"Local/display=:0", this will cause the variable used when
launching the command to be replaced with the value "0".
ConsoleKit System Restart and Stop
console-kit-daemon provides D-Bus interfaces that will restart or stop
the system. When console-kit-daemon receives a D-Bus request to
restart the system, it will run the /usr/lib/ConsoleKit/scripts/ck-
system-restart script if the user has privilege to do this operation.
When console-kit-daemon receives a D-Bus request to stop the system, it
will run the /usr/lib/ConsoleKit/scripts/ck-system-stop script if the
user has privilege to do this operation.
EXAMPLES
Example 1: To start the ConsoleKit daemon
example% console-kit-daemon
Example 2: To configure ConsoleKit to start multiple sessions on a
single seat
To start two local displays: DISPLAY ":0" on vt7 and DISPLAY ":1" on
"vt8", edit the 00-primary.seat file as follows:
[Seat Entry]
Version=1.0
Name=Primary seat
Description=start static displays :0 on vt7 and :1 on vt8
Hidden=false
[Session Entry]
Name=Local
Type=LoginWindow
Description=Local Login Screen
DisplayTemplate=Local
[Local]
display=:1
vt=/dev/vt/8
SEE ALSO
More information can be found at:
https://github.com/ConsoleKit2/ConsoleKit2
ck-history(1), ck-launch-session(1), ck-list-sessions(1), svcadm(1m),
environ(5), smf(5), console(4)
NOTES
Brian Cameron, Sun Microsystems Inc., 2009. Copyright (c) 2009 by Sun
Microsystems, Inc.
Some of the documentation in this manpage is from the ConsoleKit
documentation written by William Jon McCann.
SunOS 5.11 24 Oct 2009 console-kit-daemon(1m)