Re: Where does systemd-logind.service store its stats (e.g. loginctl things)?

Greg Wooledge <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Sat, Jul 04, 2026 at 12:49:40 +0100, Chris Green wrote:
> > This is more out of interest than necessity but I'd like to know where
> > systemd-logind.service stores its persistent data. E.g. in particular
> > when I run 'loginctl enaable-linger chris' where is the required flag
> > set?
> > 
> > It must be a persistent location as 'enable-linger' obviously survives
> > a reboot, but I just can't find where it is.
> 
> I looked at the SEE ALSO section of loginctl(1), and it refers to
> logind.conf(5).  It also says "See also KillUserProcesses= setting in
> logind.conf(5)." in the description of the enable-linger option.
> 
> logind.conf(5) says
> 
>            /etc/systemd/logind.conf
>            /run/systemd/logind.conf
>            /usr/local/lib/systemd/logind.conf
>            /usr/lib/systemd/logind.conf
>            /etc/systemd/logind.conf.d/*.conf
>            /run/systemd/logind.conf.d/*.conf
>            /usr/local/lib/systemd/logind.conf.d/*.conf
>            /usr/lib/systemd/logind.conf.d/*.conf
> 
Yes, I've looked at that too. Most of those locations aren't really
suitable (obviously the /run ones aren't) but I looked anyway and
there's nothing of much use.


> It also says that KillUserProcess= is an option, and that all options
> can be configured "in the [Login] section".
> 
> So, I would check to see whether something has been created in the
> /etc/systemd/logind.conf.d/ directory.  Failing that, I would look
> for "[Login]" as a literal string in any file under /etc/.

There's no /etc/systemd/logind.conf.d directory on my systems where I
have I have set enable-linger. For the other:-

    root@tackpi:~# grep -r '\[login\]' /etc
    root@tackpi:~#