Lock the screen when the user is idle

You can make the screen lock automatically whenever the user is idle for some amount of time. This is useful if users may leave their computers unattended in public or unsecure locations.

Enable automatic screen lock

  1. Create the user profile which contains the following lines:

    /etc/dconf/profile/user

    user-db:user
system-db:local

    local is the name of a dconf database.

  2. Create the directory /etc/dconf/db/local.d/ if it does not already exist.

  3. Create the key file /etc/dconf/db/local.d/00-screensaver to provide information for the local database.

    /etc/dconf/db/local.d/00-screensaver

    # Specify the dconf path
[org/gnome/desktop/session]

# Number of seconds of inactivity before the screen goes blank
# Set to 0 seconds if you want to deactivate the screensaver.
idle-delay=uint32 180

# Specify the dconf path
[org/gnome/desktop/screensaver]

# Number of seconds after the screen is blank before locking the screen
lock-delay=uint32 0

    You must include the uint32 along with the integer key values as shown.

  4. To prevent the user from overriding these settings, create the file /etc/dconf/db/local.d/locks/screensaver with the following content:

    /etc/dconf/db/local.d/locks/screensaver

    # Lock desktop screensaver settings
/org/gnome/desktop/session/idle-delay
/org/gnome/desktop/screensaver/lock-delay

  5. Update the system databases:

    # dconf update

  6. Users must log out and back in again before the system-wide settings take effect.