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Starting Cage on boot with systemd

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Jonathan GUILLOT edited this page Mar 11, 2024 · 4 revisions

On systemd-based Linux distributions, systemd can be used to automatically start a Cage session when the system boots. This achieves the typical embedded application setup where starting the device automatically lands you in the application. Note that for this to work, wlroots must be built with systemd logind support.

In order to integrate Cage in the boot process like this, we need to configure a number of things.

First, the systemd unit file. Place the following template unit file in /etc/systemd/system/cage@.service:

# This is a system unit for launching Cage with auto-login as the
# user configured here. For this to work, wlroots must be built
# with systemd logind support.

[Unit]
Description=Cage Wayland compositor on %I
# Make sure we are started after logins are permitted. If Plymouth is
# used, we want to start when it is on its way out.
After=systemd-user-sessions.service plymouth-quit-wait.service
# Since we are part of the graphical session, make sure we are started
# before it is complete.
Before=graphical.target
# On systems without virtual consoles, do not start.
ConditionPathExists=/dev/tty0
# D-Bus is necessary for contacting logind, which is required.
Wants=dbus.socket systemd-logind.service
After=dbus.socket systemd-logind.service
# Replace any (a)getty that may have spawned, since we log in
# automatically.
Conflicts=getty@%i.service
After=getty@%i.service

[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=/usr/bin/cage /usr/bin/gtk3-widget-factory
Restart=always
User=cage
# Log this user with utmp, letting it show up with commands 'w' and
# 'who'. This is needed since we replace (a)getty.
UtmpIdentifier=%I
UtmpMode=user
# A virtual terminal is needed.
TTYPath=/dev/%I
TTYReset=yes
TTYVHangup=yes
TTYVTDisallocate=yes
# Fail to start if not controlling the virtual terminal.
StandardInput=tty-fail

# Set up a full (custom) user session for the user, required by Cage.
PAMName=cage

[Install]
WantedBy=graphical.target
Alias=display-manager.service
DefaultInstance=tty7

In order for the unit file to work properly, you'll need to ensure that the specified user exists. Any normal Linux user suffices. Don't forget to swap out /usr/bin/gtk3-widget-factory with your application of choice!

Next, we need to create the custom PAM stack that is invoked on login. This stack needs to authenticate the user and register the user session with the systemd login manager. The below file is a minimal working configuration that can be dropped in /etc/pam.d/cage:

auth           required        pam_unix.so nullok
account        required        pam_unix.so
session        required        pam_unix.so
session        required        pam_systemd.so

Third, enable an instantiated service either with systemctl enable cage@tty1.service (or any other TTY) or by creating a symlink into etc/systemd/system/graphical.target.wants/ with ln -s /etc/systemd/system/cage@.service /etc/systemd/system/graphical.target.wants/cage@tty1.service (or any other TTY).

Finally, change systemd's default target to the graphical target. Either run systemctl set-default graphical.target or create a symlink yourself with ln -s /usr/lib/systemd/system/graphical.target /etc/systemd/system/default.target.

Parts of this page's contents are based on https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/wayland-devel/2017-November/035973.html

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