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I have a (graphical) login session running on an office computer, and I'd like to log it out to save on a few computer resources.

I can ssh to the office box, but when I try gnome-session-quit I get this:

$ gnome-session-quit --logout --no-prompt

** (gnome-session-quit:18500): WARNING **: Command line `dbus-launch --autolaunch=fca99a51622d1930b068883b00000005 --binary-syntax --close-stderr' exited with non-zero exit status 1: Autolaunch error: X11 initialization failed.\n

** (gnome-session-quit:18500): WARNING **: Unable to start: Cannot open display:

Makes sense as my $DISPLAY is empty (as it's a headless ssh session). When I run w, I see that the gnome-session is running on tty7. Is there a way I can pretend to be tty7 and initiate a logout? Is there a better way to do this?

drevicko
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  • Usually with `w`, I see some line to this effect: `muru :0 Wed20 ?xdm? 11:15m 1.10s gdm-session-worker [pam/gdm-password]`, the `:0` being my relevant `$DISPLAY`. Don't you? You can also try `pgrep -fa X` and see what X is running with. – muru Sep 22 '14 at 06:58
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    the entry from `w` with `gnome-session` had `tty7` as the display, but the session had several other entries with `:0` (terminals open I guess?). Checking the time column from `w` I realised `:0` was the graphical session for sure (: – drevicko Sep 22 '14 at 07:10

1 Answers1

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After logging in with ssh, run:

env DISPLAY=:0.0 gnome-session-quit --logout

This will force a logout on the remote machine just as if you had logged out from the menu (but without prompting). You may need to run gnome-session-quit with --force-logout if there's an application with, for example, unsaved work, that would otherwise prevent a clean logout.

If you use a very old version (<2011) of GNOME, then you need to

env DISPLAY=:0.0 gnome-session-save --logout

... because gnome-session-save was renamed to gnome-session-quit in 2011.

Source

Community
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Jan
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    On the office box, there is no `gnome-session-save`, but there is a `gnome-session-quit` which (with the rest of your answer) did the trick. I forgot to mention it's running Ubuntu 12.04 - perhaps that's why? – drevicko Sep 22 '14 at 07:07
  • @drevicko probably a typo. It's still `-quit` on a 12.04 box I have. – muru Sep 22 '14 at 07:15
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    gnome-session-save was renamed to gnome-session-quit in 2011: https://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2011-February/msg00147.html – Jan Sep 22 '14 at 07:25
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    @muru: updated answer accordingly – Jan Sep 22 '14 at 07:28
  • Note that if the session is run under a session manager like Xvnc, it may not be on display 0.0. You can often find the display by doing a `ps ux` listing to find the process and see which display number is listed with the process. For example, my Xvnc process was listed as `Xvnc :10 -geometry...`, so I had to use `env DISPLAY=:10.0 ...`. – Bloodgain Sep 03 '20 at 01:01