systemd-inhibit

Index

## Name

systemd-inhibit — Execute a program with an inhibition lock taken

## Synopsis

`systemd-inhibit [OPTIONS...] [COMMAND] [ARGUMENTS...]`

`systemd-inhibit [OPTIONS...] --list`

## Description

systemd-inhibit may be used to execute a program with a shutdown, sleep or idle inhibitor lock taken. The lock will be acquired before the specified command line is executed and released afterwards.

Inhibitor locks may be used to block or delay system sleep and shutdown requests from the user, as well as automatic idle handling of the OS. This is useful to avoid system suspends while an optical disc is being recorded, or similar operations that should not be interrupted.

For more information see the Inhibitor Lock Developer Documentation.

## Options

The following options are understood:

`-h`, `--help`

  Prints a short help text and exits.

`--version`

  Prints a short version string and exits.

`--what=`

  Takes a colon separated list of one or more operations to inhibit: `shutdown`, `sleep`, `idle`, for inhibiting reboot/power-off/halt/kexec, suspending/hibernating, resp. the automatic idle detection. If omitted defaults to `idle:sleep:shutdown`, i.e. takes all possible locks.

`--who=`

  Takes a short human readable descriptive string for the program taking the lock. If not passed defaults to the command line string.

`--why=`

  Takes a short human readable descriptive string for the reason for taking the lock. Defaults to "Unknown reason".

`--mode=`

  Takes either `block` or `delay` and describes how the lock is applied. If `block` is used (the default), the lock prohibits any of the requested operations without time limit, and only privileged users may override it. If `delay` is used, the lock can only delay the requested operations for a limited time. If the time elapses the lock is ignored and the operation executed. The time limit may be specified in systemd-logind.conf(5).

`--list`

  Lists all active inhibition locks instead of acquiring one.

## Exit status

Returns the exit status of the executed program.

## Example

    # systemd-inhibit wodim foobar.iso

This burns the ISO image `foobar.iso` on a CD using wodim(1), and inhibits system sleeping, shutdown and idle while doing so.

## See Also

systemd(1), systemd-logind.conf(5)