Run script on screen lock/unlock

Question

I'd like to run a screen if the Gnome session is locked and unlocked. Is there a way that I can intercept this and perform certain actions when the desktop is locked or unlocked?

Answer 1

gnome-screensaver emits some signals on dbus when something happens.

Here the documentation (with some examples).

You could write a scripts that runs:

dbus-monitor --session "type='signal',interface='org.gnome.ScreenSaver'"

and that does what you need anytime dbus-monitor prints a line about the screen locked/unlocked.

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Here a bash command to do what you need:

dbus-monitor --session "type='signal',interface='org.gnome.ScreenSaver'" | ( while true; do read X; if echo $X | grep "boolean true" &> /dev/null; then SCREEN_LOCKED; elif echo $X | grep "boolean false" &> /dev/null; then SCREEN_UNLOCKED; fi done )

Just replace SCREEN_LOCKED and SCREEN_UNLOCKED with what you need.