This program is actively supported, but is simply not being developed much anymore because it is now mature and nobody reports any problem with it. There is no more need for new features either. So do not judge the software by the number of commits.
It is compatible with many current Linux distributions. Try it and if you have any issue, please report it; we will work hard to get things fixed.
Autopoweroff is a daemon that is started at boot time, and which function is to run a command at a specific time, but only if some conditions are met. Originally, this application would only shutdown the computer, thus its name, but now it can suspend, hibernate, or run any custom command provided by the user.
This software is meant for the Linux operating system only. It should work on any modern Linux distribution. Deb and RPM packages are available.
The computer will execute the command (suspend by default) if all the above conditions are met:
- Any hosts that the computer is dependent on is not answering ping anymore.
- No keyboard or mouse activity has been detected on the computer for a while.
- The CPU usage falls below a threshold for a period of at least 1s.
- The user has not disabled Autopoweroff.
Autopoweroff can be used on a cloud instance which could be shutdown automatically as soon as the CPU usage falls below a threshold (after heavy processing is over), thus saving cost of keeping the cloud instance up.
Another good use of Autopoweroff is at home, on a firewall/router server.
You can setup Autopoweroff to suspend/shutdown the server every evening at
say, 22:00. However, your server might serve other computers in your home.
Autopoweroff will shutdown the server after 22:00 only if no other computer
on the network is responding to ping. For example, if at 22:43
you are still working on your thin client in the living room, the server in
your baseman will remain up. As soon as you shutdown the workstation, the
server will go down.
The server can boot automatically every morning by setting its BIOS properly. Autopoweroff has nothing to do with this process. But with this setting, your home server does not need to run 24/7. The advantages such a setting offers are:
- Increase security. Nobody can hack your server while its suspended, in hibernation or shutdown.
- Save electricity and curb down heat generation.
- Cut down noise. A shutdown server does not produce any noise.
- Avoid the hassle of having to shut down and start up the server manually.
A nice GUI is provided to configure Autopoweroff's parameters. See Autopoweroff configurator.
Note that one day, it might be possible to replace this piece of software with SystemD. Currently I have no OS with SystemD installed to test.
Autopoweroff will work on most distributions. However, for some distribution you might have to manually move files to the right place to get it working and write your own init script so that Autopoweroff would start at booting. If you install Autopoweroff from the tarball, this is more likely.
Fully supported distributions include: Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora/Red Hat and openSUSE. It should also work with any derivative of these distributions. Download the .rpm or .deb package and everything will be installed and enabled automatically. This include setting up Autopoweroff to start at the next computer boot. And if you decide to remove Autopoweroff, everything gets removed.
With a package, you will only have to run the GUI configuration tool or
edit /etc/autopoweroff.conf to your particular needs. Autopoweroff
will be eventually submitted to Ubuntu's and Fedora's repositories,
making it even easier to install.
If you are running a distribution that is not yet supported by Autopoweroff, write to me. I will ask you some questions about your distribution and probably be able to add support for it.
The latest version of Autopoweroff can be downloaded from GitHub
You may follow the project's status also from the following sites:
There are two ways to configure Autopoweroff.
- Use the GUI configuration tool.
- Edit manually the configuration file
autopoweroff.conf.
The Autopoweroff GUI configuration tool is mostly self explanatory. To start the GUI configuration tool simply search for "autopoweroff" on your desktop. If all else fail, you can call /usr/bin/autopoweroff from a file manager or a terminal.
In the first panel named Status & Commands, the user can enable or disable Autopoweroff and poweroff or reboot the computer.
Status & commands
In the second panel named Status & Commands, the user can configure the different parameters of Autopoweroff. See Autopoweroff configuration file for a description of the different parameters.
Configuration
The /etc/autopoweroff.conf (or ${prefix}/etc/autopoweroff.conf, for
those who installed from the tarball) configuration file is well
documented and easy to understand. Following is an example:
# Autopoweroff Test version configuration file.
# WARNING: If you decide to edit this file, edit only the values of the
# parameters. If you add comments, they will be lost at the
# next software upgrade or when the GUI configurator is being
# used to update the file. Only values persists.
# StartHour and EndHour parameters (expressed in hours):
#
# Following is the time range where the computer should not take any action
# even if all conditions are met. In this example where StartHour=5 and
# EndHour=22, the computer will not take action between 05:00 and
# 22:00, local time.
[NO_ACTION_TIME_RANGE]
StartHour=5
EndHour=7
# StartupDelay parameter (expressed in minutes):
#
# When the computer is booting up, if all the conditions are met and the
# computer is in the action time range, as soon as Autopoweroff is started,
# the computer will take action. Thus, the user will never have the chance
# to boot into the computer. This is where the "delay" parameter comes in.
# If "delay" is set to 15 for example, Autopoweroff will not poweroff the
# computer even if all the conditions are met, for a period of 15 minutes
# after the computer has booted. This allows the user to login and change
# Autopoweroff's configuration.
#
#
# IdleTime parameter (expressed in minutes):
#
# Like a screensaver, Autopoweroff detects keyboard and mouse activity, and
# if there is any activity on the server, it would not be powered off
# regardless if all the other conditions are met. If set to 0, user
# activity on the server will be ignored.
[TIMEOUTS]
StartupDelay=5
IdleTime=15
# Hosts parameter (list of hostnames or IPs, separated by commas):
#
# Here you list the list of hosts your machine is dependant, i.e. this
# computer should not take action if any of the hosts declared here is
# still up (responding to ping).
[DEPENDANTS]
Hosts=server1, server2, server3
# CpuPercentage parameter (integer or 'Disabled'):
#
# If the CPU usage falls below the provided value (say, '5' for 5%) for a
# full second, the condition is then considered met.
[RESOURCES]
CpuPercentage=Disabled
# [ACTION]
#
# Action
#
# Action to be taken when all conditions are met.
#
# Choices are (case insensitive):
#
# - Shutdown (S0✲ poweroff)
# - Sleep (S3✲ suspend to ram)
# - Hibernate (S4✲ suspend to disk)
# - Other (ActionCommand must be supplied)
#
# ✲ ACPI states.
# See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Configuration_and_Power_Interface#Global_states
#
# ActionCommand
#
# In some cases, users want to specifiy the action command. It could be a
# script, a special version of /usr/sbin/shutdown, etc... Arguments are
# added after the command. Example:
#
# ActionCommand=/usr/sbin/shutdown -r now
#
# Strictly speaking, the command could be anything, including actions
# that has nothing to do with powering down a computer. In that sense,
# 'Autopoweroff' is a misnomer; it should have been called something like
# 'ScheduledAction'.
#
# Autopoweroff already have standard Linux command hardcoded for shutting
# down, sleep or hibernate the computer. Therefore, this command comes
# commented in the default configuration file.
#
# Since this option is an advance one, it is not available from the GUI.
[ACTION]
Action=Sleep
ActionCommand=None
It is possible to setup the UEFI / BIOS so that the computer will boot itself every day. Each UEFI / BIOS is different, thus the instructions how to set them up cannot be found here. Please refer to your UEFI / BIOS manual or online instructions.
Note that on some systems, the computer will wakeup only if it as been shutdown completely, but not if it has been suspended. Thus is this scenario, better set the Action to "shutdown".
To install the .deb package, simply run:
sudo apt install ./*autopoweroff*.deb
To install the .rpm package, simply run:
rpm -Uhv autopoweroff*.rpm
For the tarball, extract it and run configure followed by make install.
tar xvzf autopoweroff.tar.gz
cd autopoweroff
configure --prefix="<path to the installation directory>"
make install `
You will need to setup the init script properly. Two versions exists.
Once installed, Autopoweroff's daemon is not started automatically nor is your system configured to start it upon reboot. Since Autopoweroff has a disruptive behaviour, i.e. can suspend the system, as a safety feature, one must consciously start it and set Autopoweroff to start upon each reboot.
To start the Autopoweroff's daemon, call either:
systemctl start autopoweroff.service # For systemd based systems.
or
service autopoweroff start # For System-V init.d based systems.
As stated above, Autopoweroff is not configured to run automatically upon boot. To enable Autopoweroff on boot on a systemd based system, run:
systemctl enable autopoweroff.service # For systemd based systems.
or
update-rc.d autopoweroff enable # For System-V init.d based systems.
Remember that Autopoweroff has an StartupDelay parameter of 5 minutes (configurable). Thus upon bootup, there is always a 5 minutes window before Autopoweroff can run its action, giving the administrator the time to deactivate Autopoweroff it needs to be.
Autopoweroff daemon can be manually controlled with the following commands:
systemctl [start|stop|restart] autopoweroff.service # For systemd based systems.
or
service autopoweroff [start|stop|restart] # For System-V init.d based systems.
To uninstall the .deb package, simply run:
sudo dpkg -r autopoweroff
To uninstall the .rpm package, simply run:
rpm -e autopoweroff
If you installed from the tarball, run
autopoweroff_uninstall
This software is covered by the GPL 2.0 license. For a local copy of the license, see file COPYING.
Do not be alarmed by glade warning message showing up when you are
running the autopoweroff command (the GUI configurator). These warning
appears because you are running a different version of Gnome than the
one upon which Autopoweroff was built. Probably you are running an older
version, thus some new properties that were introduced are not supported
on your older system.
Under Debian Policy, /etc/init.d files are considered configuration file like any other /etc file. Thus when Autopoweroff upgrades its /etc/init.d file, apt (or your software package manager) will prompt you asking if you want to keep the original file or not.
This make sense because some people actually modify /etc/init.d files to suit their particular needs. Ideally though, the software package manager should not prompt if the original file has not change when upgrading. Alas, this is not the case except only for the most recent version of Linux (this comment was written in September 2008).
See: Ubuntu Bug #246550
Autopoweroff might be of interest to developers because of the following reasons:
-
This project is a very nice example on how to write a Python daemon that probes input devices and make use of threads.
-
It is also a very good example about packaging for .deb and .rpm based distributions, and universal tarball.
-
However, as it makes heavy use of
autoconfandautomake, it is NOT a good example on how to package a Python project. Autopoweroff started way before there was better packaging systems and thus why it makes use ofautoconfandautomake, but if you start a new project from scratch, choose something more modern. -
Finally, this project is an example on how to provide a mean to uninstall a tarball. If you distribute your software as a tarball, please provide an easy solution to uninstall it by either providing a script like Autopoweroff is doing, or provide a "make uninstall" target.
The following are features to be added in future releases.
- Move to systemd.
- Ignore all type of accelerometers.
- Detect activity from a remote login, either it be console or an X session. Currently, if someone is working remotly on the computer, this will go undetected and Autopoweroff will proceed with the action if all other conditions are met.
- New GUI that follows more closely the Gnome recommendations.
- Better documentation, including writing a man page.
- Support for a wider range of Linux distributions.
-
There is no funding for this project. There is only one volunteer contributor, the original author.
-
This document source is a Markdown document. The following tools are used for editing it.
- Vim text editor
- GhostWriter, a simple but reliable Markdown editor.
-
Autopoweroff is mentioned in the following article:
Change log is saved in file CHANGELOG.md.
If you have any questions or issues with this software, you can contact the following persons:
Author: Hans Deragon
Email: hans@deragon.biz
Website: www.deragon.biz