Fedora 33 - How can I stop the power button from triggering halt?

Hi,

I run Fedora on a Dell server box which has the power button in a dumb location where it is easily pressed accidentally. The button is very close to the DVD drive open button! And worse, the activation pressure is extremely light. I think somebody at Dell needs to be fired…

I do have Workstation installed but I have removed quite a lot of it. So I don’t have the normal GUI management tools, when I do upgrades to new releases I use command line etc.

I didn’t find how to search docs.fedoraproject.org, I don’t see a search box!

I’m unable to find how to configure the power button not to do anything, can somebody please point me in the right direction?

Thanks,

Bill

1 Like

Have a look to the
man logind.conf

HandlePowerKey=, HandleSuspendKey=, HandleHibernateKey=, HandleLidSwitch=, HandleLidSwitchExternalPower=,
       HandleLidSwitchDocked=, HandleRebootKey=
           Controls how logind shall handle the system power, reboot and sleep keys and the lid switch to trigger actions such as
           system power-off, reboot or suspend. Can be one of "ignore", "poweroff", "reboot", "halt", "kexec", "suspend",
           "hibernate", "hybrid-sleep", "suspend-then-hibernate", and "lock". If "ignore", logind will never handle these keys. If
           "lock", all running sessions will be screen-locked; otherwise, the specified action will be taken in the respective
           event. Only input devices with the "power-switch" udev tag will be watched for key/lid switch events.  HandlePowerKey=
           defaults to "poweroff", HandleRebootKey= defaults to "reboot".  HandleSuspendKey= and HandleLidSwitch= default to
           "suspend".  HandleLidSwitchExternalPower= is completely ignored by default (for backwards compatibility) — an explicit
           value must be set before it will be used to determine behaviour.  HandleLidSwitchDocked= defaults to "ignore".
           HandleHibernateKey= defaults to "hibernate". If the system is inserted in a docking station, or if more than one
           display is connected, the action specified by HandleLidSwitchDocked= occurs; if the system is on external power the
           action (if any) specified by HandleLidSwitchExternalPower= occurs; otherwise the HandleLidSwitch= action occurs.

           A different application may disable logind's handling of system power and sleep keys and the lid switch by taking a
           low-level inhibitor lock ("handle-power-key", "handle-suspend-key", "handle-hibernate-key", "handle-lid-switch",
           "handle-reboot-switch"). This is most commonly used by graphical desktop environments to take over suspend and
           hibernation handling, and to use their own configuration mechanisms. If a low-level inhibitor lock is taken, logind
           will not take any action when that key or switch is triggered and the Handle*= settings are irrelevant.
2 Likes

Thank you, @sampsonf

I’ll give it a try when I can reboot the box and I will update this thread.

1 Like
# Log in as GDM
sudo machinectl shell gdm@ $(type -p bash)

# Run in both GDM and user shells
gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.power power-button-action "nothing"

GDM - ArchWiki

1 Like

Thank you @vgaetera I prefer a command-line solution without additional package burden. I will try @sampsonf suggestion which looks encouraging and update this thread.

Looks like machinectl is in systemd-container which I do not have installed.

For people with a minimal installation, if it works, then logind.conf is the right approach.

For people with a normal Workstation install (and maybe server, I don’t know) then your suggestion looks like a good choice.

Thank you.

1 Like

Changing logind.conf in /etc/systemd to include HandlePowerKey=ignore has solved the problem.

Many thanks to everybody who answered.

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