Hello,

in order to detect what method to use to lock the screen,
/etc/acpi/sleep.sh and /usr/share/acpi-support/screenblank look for an
existing xscreensaver.

However, if xscreensaver has crashed for some reason, then the screen
does not get locked, which I see as rather problematic security issue.

In my case, if xscreensaver is not running, I would rather the suspend
not to happen, so that I know what is going on rather than falsely
assume that it is now safe to leave the laptop unattended.

Or even more ideally, the scripts could start xscreensaver for me if it
is not running.

Well, even more ideally it should not be a problem of acpi scripts but
X should have a way to say "make sure that the screen is locked in
whatever way the user prefers, but lock it", or the X lock machinery of
the ACPi script should be extracted and bundled in an x-lock-screen
script that could also be used by others, but this is digressing.

I understand that ensuring the screen is locked would mean requiring me
to explicitly specify what X lock method should be used in my machine,
but that would be exactly what I would like to be able to do.


Cheers,

Enrico

And what if you don't have screensaver installed or use some other software to
lock the screen? Or worse, it is installed due to some package dependencies but
for some reason doesn't work reliably on this system? Or there is someone
working under an account he doesn't have a password for?

I don't think automating this is possible. At least I don't have an idea how to
do this right now.

Michael

what about having LOCK_COMMAND that if set is used instead, otherwise the
usual methods are ran?

filippo