Prompt the user when the power button is pressed on a VM

[Norbert]

Steps to reproduce:
1. Install Ubuntu 18.04 LTS as VirtualBox guest
2. Login to session
3. Press ACPI Power button/key

Expected behavior:
* Ubuntu asks user about action

Actual behavior:
* Ubuntu immediately shutdowns

Note 1: Problem exists with both VirtualBox 5.1.36 and 5.2.10 (guest additions and extpack are installed and have corresponding versions). Ubuntu 16.04.4 LTS amd64 is a host.

Note 2: Problem exists if use QEMU-KVM (sudo kvm -m 1536 -drive file=/dev/sdc,format=raw) too. Sending system_powerdown from <Ctrl+Alt+2> shutdowns system without prompt.

Workaround/fix (1)

gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.power power-button-action interactive

Workaround/fix (2)

Settings >
Power >
Suspend & Power Button >
When the Power Button is pressed = Power Off (actually does prompt the user)

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 18.04
Package: ubuntu-desktop 1.417
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.15.0-20.21-generic 4.15.17
Uname: Linux 4.15.0-20-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.9-0ubuntu7
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Sat May 5 18:32:06 2018
InstallationDate: Installed on 2018-04-28 (7 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 18.04 LTS "Bionic Beaver" - Release amd64 (20180426)
SourcePackage: ubuntu-meta
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
---
ApportVersion: 2.20.9-0ubuntu7
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 18.04
InstallationDate: Installed on 2018-04-28 (8 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 18.04 LTS "Bionic Beaver" - Release amd64 (20180426)
Package: gnome-settings-daemon
PackageArchitecture: amd64
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.15.0-20.21-generic 4.15.17
Tags: bionic
Uname: Linux 4.15.0-20-generic x86_64
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
UserGroups: adm cdrom dip lpadmin plugdev sambashare sudo
_MarkForUpload: True

[Norbert (nrbrtx)]

I posted my analysis in AskUbuntu question ( https://askubuntu.com/q/1032461/66509 ) .

Currently I can state that in terminal session aka `multi-user.target` (`systemctl isolate multi-user.target`) all variables from */etc/systemd/logind.conf* are sourced normally. So the problem is with GNOME session (`systemctl isolate graphical.target`) in `gnome-settings-daemon` or something other.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

The default action is suspend:

    <key name="power-button-action" enum="org.gnome.settings-daemon.GsdPowerButtonActionType">
      <default>'suspend'</default>
      <summary>Power button action</summary>
      <description>The action to take when the system power button is pressed. This action is hard-coded (and the setting ignored) on virtual machines (power off) and tablets (suspend).</description>
    </key>

but you can change that in:

Settings >
Power >
Suspend & Power Button >
When the Power Button is pressed ...

Unfortunately no option exists to prompt the user. So that would be an enhancement request...

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Oh! The schema does support it already ("interactive"):

  <enum id="org.gnome.settings-daemon.GsdPowerButtonActionType">
    <value nick="nothing" value="0"/>
    <value nick="suspend" value="1"/>
    <value nick="hibernate" value="2"/>
    <value nick="interactive" value="3"/>
  </enum>

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Here's a fix :)

gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.power power-button-action interactive

It's just not the default.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

We also need a GUI enhancement to gnome-control-center to expose the setting, which already exists.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

More weird; the GUI does contain the feature you want, but upon looking at the source code I found it is just named incorrectly:

Settings >
Power >
Suspend & Power Button >
When the Power Button is pressed = Power Off

actually prompts the user. It doesn't "Power Off".

So for now set it to "Power Off".

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

And a fix for gnome-control-center is here:
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-control-center/merge_requests/39

[Norbert (nrbrtx)]

apport information

[Norbert (nrbrtx)]

apport information

[Norbert (nrbrtx)]

apport information

[Norbert (nrbrtx)]

Dear Daniel!

Thank you for replying and for analysis.

1. On clean installation on physical hardware the behavior of Power Button is as follows:
* on console ttys system shutdowns
* on the GDM system goes to sleep (suspends)
* in GNOME session it asks what to do if run `gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.power power-button-action interactive` manually (no GUI option - it is a bug 1769614 )

So seems to be expected behavior.

2. But if I run Ubuntu as VirtualBox 5.1 guest (this bug report):
* all settings are ignored (both `logind.conf` and `gsettings`).
* I do not have "When the Power Button is pressed" in `gnome-control-center power`

How to debug this? Should I report special bug to upstream?

---

You can see images on my AskUbuntu question ( https://askubuntu.com/q/1032461/66509 ).

[Norbert (nrbrtx)]

Upstream bug report - https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-control-center/issues/85 .

[Norbert (nrbrtx)]

Note 1: Problem exists with both VirtualBox 5.1.36 and 5.2.10 (guest additions and extpack are installed and have corresponding versions). Ubuntu 16.04.4 LTS amd64 is a host.

Note 2: Problem exists if use QEMU-KVM (sudo kvm -m 1536 -drive file=/dev/sdc,format=raw) too. Sending system_powerdown from <Ctrl+Alt+2> shutdowns system without prompt.

[Jeremy Bícha (jbicha)]

I'm closing the gnome-control-center side of this issue since I believe that it's gnome-settings-daemon that is responsible for the different behavior in virtual machines.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Please read: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-control-center/merge_requests/39

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Also, the bug applies to real machines too. So I removed mention of VMs.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

OK, as is the pattern this week, the confusion here is the intersection of two different bugs. Not one.

My gitlab merge request solves a different problem to this bug.

[Norbert (nrbrtx)]

I do not understand about "confusion" and "intersection".
Will this fixed or not in Ubuntu 18.04 LTS?
Or GNOME will continue to reinvent of new unique interaction mechanisms between user and desktop?

[Jeremy Bícha (jbicha)]

Norbert, the upstream bug is https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-settings-daemon/issues/46

Once that issue is fixed in GNOME, it can be fixed in the current development release of Ubuntu and then in Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.

Comment #18 here was about something different so you can probably ignore that.

[Norbert (nrbrtx)]

OK, Jeremy!

Thank you! I hope to get this bug will be fixed.

[Jeremy Bícha (jbicha)]

I am bumping the importance of this bug based on the new test case I added to the GNOME bug today.

[Norbert (nrbrtx)]

It is absolutely expected that this bug exists in 20.04 LTS. Will not use GNOME Shell on VirtualBox.

[Alan Baghumian (alanbach)]

This is also affecting Virsh (KVM/QEMU) based virtual machines. Just tested with The latest Focal update (gnome-settings-daemon 3.36.1-0ubuntu1.1) and the machine was turned off without any notifications.