Bug#896083: gdm3: Suspends machine after 20 minutes

[Michael Franzl]

Package: gdm3
Version: 3.28.0-1
Severity: important

Dear Maintainer,

gdm3's default dconf energy settings suspend the machine after 20 minutes.

This is independent of the power settings made by an unprivileged user within a
Gnome login session.

While this could be forgiven on a locally accessible desktop machine, it also
suspends remote/headless machines (e.g. in a data center). Activity on a SSH
terminal or VNC connection does not prevent this issue. Having no easy way to
re-wake remote machines, this may create highly inconvenient situations for
administrators. In addition, unexpected suspension may also have disastrous
consequences, depending on the use of the machine.

To reproduce, install task-gnome-desktop and wait for 20 minutes on a machine
which supports power management.

The offending settings can be printed to the console. As superuser:

    su -s /bin/bash Debian-gdm
    unset XDG_RUNTIME_DIR

    dbus-launch gsettings get org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.power sleep-
inactive-ac-type
    dbus-launch gsettings get org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.power sleep-
inactive-ac-timeout

This prints 'suspend' and '1200', respectively.

For quicker reproduction of the problem, reduce the timeout to 2 minutes:

    dbus-launch gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.power sleep-
inactive-ac-timeout 120

Then reboot and wait 2 minutes.

To turn off suspension, set:

    dbus-launch gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.power sleep-
inactive-ac-type nothing

Regards,
Michael Franzl



-- System Information:
Debian Release: buster/sid
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (500, 'testing')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 4.15.0-2-amd64 (SMP w/8 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE=en_US:en (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
LSM: AppArmor: enabled

Versions of packages gdm3 depends on:
ii  accountsservice                       0.6.45-1
ii  adduser                               3.117
ii  dconf-cli                             0.28.0-2
ii  dconf-gsettings-backend               0.28.0-2
ii  debconf [debconf-2.0]                 1.5.66
ii  gir1.2-gdm-1.0                        3.28.0-1
ii  gnome-session [x-session-manager]     3.28.0-2
ii  gnome-session-bin                     3.28.0-2
ii  gnome-settings-daemon                 3.28.0-1
ii  gnome-shell                           3.28.0-1+b1
ii  gnome-terminal [x-terminal-emulator]  3.28.0-1
ii  gsettings-desktop-schemas             3.28.0-1
ii  libaccountsservice0                   0.6.45-1
ii  libaudit1                             1:2.8.2-1
ii  libc6                                 2.27-3
ii  libcanberra-gtk3-0                    0.30-6
ii  libcanberra0                          0.30-6
ii  libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0                    2.36.11-2
ii  libgdm1                               3.28.0-1
ii  libglib2.0-0                          2.56.1-2
ii  libglib2.0-bin                        2.56.1-2
ii  libgtk-3-0                            3.22.29-3
ii  libkeyutils1                          1.5.9-9.2
ii  libpam-modules                        1.1.8-3.7
ii  libpam-runtime                        1.1.8-3.7
ii  libpam-systemd                        238-4
ii  libpam0g                              1.1.8-3.7
ii  librsvg2-common                       2.40.20-2
ii  libselinux1                           2.7-2+b2
ii  libsystemd0                           238-4
ii  libwrap0                              7.6.q-27
ii  libx11-6                              2:1.6.5-1
ii  libxau6                               1:1.0.8-1+b2
ii  libxcb1                               1.13-1
ii  libxdmcp6                             1:1.1.2-3
ii  lsb-base                              9.20170808
ii  mutter [x-window-manager]             3.28.0-2
ii  policykit-1                           0.105-20
ii  ucf                                   3.0038
ii  x11-common                            1:7.7+19
ii  x11-xserver-utils                     7.7+8

Versions of packages gdm3 recommends:
ii  at-spi2-core    2.28.0-1
ii  desktop-base    9.0.5
ii  x11-xkb-utils   7.7+3+b1
ii  xserver-xephyr  2:1.19.6-1
ii  xserver-xorg    1:7.7+19
ii  zenity          3.28.1-1

Versions of packages gdm3 suggests:
pn  gnome-orca            <none>
pn  libpam-fprintd        <none>
ii  libpam-gnome-keyring  3.28.0.2-1

-- debconf information:
  gdm3/daemon_name: /usr/sbin/gdm3
* shared/default-x-display-manager: gdm3