geoclue agent process persists after user logout

[Daniel Richard G.]

This concerns geoclue-2.0 2.5.6-0ubuntu1 in Ubuntu focal.

I am using the Xfce desktop. When a user logs in, a /usr/libexec/geoclue-2.0/demos/agent process is started.

However, when the user logs out, and the associated "systemd --user" instance is killed, the geoclue process remains---apparently because it is running outside of the process group in which all the other session-related processes were in.

Not only does this prevent the process from being cleaned up correctly, if the user logs in again, *another* geoclue process starts up. And when they log out, and everything else gets cleaned up... *two* useless geoclue processes remain. Repeat ad infinitum.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Erik Devriendt (erik-devriendt)]

On UbuntuMATE 20.04, after logging out, the login session remains in state 'closing', blocked by the /usr/libexec/geoclue-2.0/demos/agent process.

The loginctl command shows accumulating sessions.
loginctl session-status <session-name> shows:

c2 - ebp-admin (1000)
           Since: Tue 2021-03-23 03:51:12 PDT; 3min 20s ago
          Leader: 1149
            Seat: seat0; vc7
         Display: :0
         Service: lightdm; type x11; class user
         Desktop: mate
           State: closing
            Unit: session-c2.scope
                  └─1547 /usr/libexec/geoclue-2.0/demos/agent

Mar 23 03:51:12 ubuntu systemd[1]: Started Session c2 of user ebp-admin.
Mar 23 03:51:14 ubuntu mate-session[1175]: WARNING: Unable to find provider '' of required component 'dock'
Mar 23 03:51:16 ubuntu gnome-keyring-daemon[1172]: The SSH agent was already initialized
Mar 23 03:51:16 ubuntu gnome-keyring-daemon[1172]: The Secret Service was already initialized
Mar 23 03:51:16 ubuntu gnome-keyring-daemon[1172]: The PKCS#11 component was already initialized
Mar 23 03:51:28 ubuntu pkexec[1888]: pam_unix(polkit-1:session): session opened for user root by (uid=1000)
Mar 23 03:51:28 ubuntu pkexec[1888]: ebp-admin: Executing command [USER=root] [TTY=unknown] [CWD=/home/ebp-admin] [COMMAND=/usr/lib/updat>
Mar 23 03:52:17 ubuntu lightdm[1149]: pam_unix(lightdm:session): session closed for user ebp-admin

[Erik Devriendt (erik-devriendt)]

Same behavior on Ubuntu derivatives Linux Mint 20.1 MATE and Cinnamon.

[Erik Devriendt (erik-devriendt)]

As a workaround, I changed /etc/systemd/logind.conf by putting:
KillUserProcesses=yes

There might be sideeffects though, like the 'screen' command not surviving the logout.

[Daniel Richard G. (skunk)]

KillUserProcesses=yes is a sledgehammer of a solution. I would advise just removing the geoclue package.

[Christian Weiske (cweiske)]

I see this on Ubuntu 20.04.4 LTS with geoclue-2.0/focal,now 2.5.6-0ubuntu1:

$ loginctl session-status c4
c4 - spiele (1002)
           Since: Tue 2022-08-02 19:58:47 CEST; 11h ago
          Leader: 3710
            Seat: seat0; vc7
         Display: :0
         Service: lightdm; type x11; class user
         Desktop: mate
           State: closing
            Unit: session-c4.scope
                  ├─4152 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/indicator-application/indicator-application-service
                  ├─4180 /usr/libexec/geoclue-2.0/demos/agent
                  └─4194 /usr/bin/dbus-daemon --syslog --fork --print-pid 5 --print-address 7 --session

[John Jendro (tacliat)]

Also seeing this on Ubuntu 22.04

[Tony Travis (ajtravis)]

Confirmed in Ubuntu-MATE 22.04.3