Name

pam_systemd — Register user sessions in the systemd control group hierarchy

Synopsis

pam_systemd.so

Description

pam_systemd registers user sessions in the systemd control group hierarchy.

On login, this module ensures the following:

  1. If it does not exist yet, the user runtime directory /run/user/$USER is created and its ownership changed to the user that is logging in.

  2. If create-session=1 is set, the $XDG_SESSION_ID environment variable is initialized. If auditing is available and pam_loginuid.so run before this module (which is highly recommended), the variable is initialized from the auditing session id (/proc/self/sessionid). Otherwise an independent session counter is used.

  3. If create-session=1 is set, a new control group /user/$USER/$XDG_SESSION_ID is created and the login process moved into it.

  4. If create-session=0 is set, a new control group /user/$USER/user is created and the login process moved into it.

On logout, this module ensures the following:

  1. If $XDG_SESSION_ID is set and kill-session=1 specified, all remaining processes in the /user/$USER/$XDG_SESSION_ID control group are killed and the control group is removed.

  2. If $XDG_SESSION_ID is set and kill-session=0 specified, all remaining processes in the /user/$USER/$XDG_SESSION_ID control group are migrated to /user/$USER/user and the original control group is removed.

  3. If kill-user=1 is specified, and no other user session control group remains, except /user/$USER/user, all remaining processes in the /user/$USER hierarchy are killed and the control group is removed.

  4. If kill-user=0 is specified, and no process remains in the /user/$USER hierarchy the control group is removed.

  5. If the /user/$USER control group was removed the $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR directory and all its contents are removed, too.

If the system was not booted up with systemd as init system, this module does nothing and immediately returns PAM_SUCCESS.

Options

The following options are understood:

create-session=

Takes a boolean argument. If true, a new session is created: the $XDG_SESSION_ID environment variable is set and the login process moved to the /user/$USER/$XDG_SESSION_ID control group. It is recommended that all services which are directly created on the user's behalf set this option. Only for services that shall automatically be terminated when the user logs out completely, otherwise create-session=0 should be set.

kill-session=

Takes a boolean argument. If true, all processes created by the user during his session and from his session will be terminated when he logs out from his session.

kill-user=

Takes a boolean argument. If true, all processes created by the user during his session and from his session will be terminated after he logged out completely. This is a weaker version of kill-session=1 and is more friendly for users logged in more than once, as their processes are terminated only on their complete logout.

kill-only-users=

Takes a comma separated list of user names or numeric user ids as argument. If this option is used the effect of the kill-session= and kill-user= options will apply only to the listed users. If this option is not used the option applies to all local users. Note that kill-exclude-users= takes precedence over this list and is hence subtracted from the list specified here.

kill-exclude-users=

Takes a comma separated list of user names or numeric user ids as argument. Users listed in this argument will not be subject to the effect of kill-session= or kill-user=. Note that that this option takes precedence over kill-only-users=, and hence whatever is listed for kill-exclude-users= is guaranteed to never be killed by this PAM module, independent of any other configuration setting.

controllers=

Takes a comma separated list of cgroup controllers in which hierarchies a user/session cgroup will be created by default for each user logging in, in addition to the cgroup in the named 'name=systemd' hierarchy. If ommited, defaults to an empty list. This may be used to move user sessions into their own groups in the 'cpu' hierarchy which ensures that every logged in user gets an equal amount of CPU time regardless how many processes he has started.

reset-controllers=

Takes a comma separated list of cgroup controllers in which hierarchies the logged in processes will be reset to the root cgroup. If ommited, defaults to 'cpu', meaning that a 'cpu' cgroup grouping inherited from the login manager will be reset for the processes of the logged in user.

debug=

Takes a boolean argument. If true, logs debugging information.

Note that setting kill-user=1 or even kill-session=1 will break tools like screen(1).

If the options are omitted they default to create-session=1, kill-session=0, kill-user=0, reset-controllers=cpu, kill-only-users=, kill-exclude-users=root.