greetd

greetd is a minimal and flexible login manager daemon that makes no assumptions about what you want to launch. Greetd needs to be combined with a greeter. You can find a list of available greeters: greetd-*.

Text based greeter

For text based greeters you want to make sure that vt is set in:

Contents of /etc/greetd/config.toml

[terminal] # The VT to run the greeter on. Can be "next", "current" or a number # designating the VT. vt = 7

Graphical greeter - gtkgreet

The following section details the steps for using the graphical greeter gtkgreet which is packaged as greetd-gtkgreet.

1. Install the main package and the greeter:

   # apk add greetd greetd-gtkgreet

2. Install a lightweight wayland compositor to be used with greetd login session.(If using Sway, no need for cage).

   # apk add cage

3. Graphical greeters like gtkgreet require either seatd or elogind. If using seatd, follow the additional steps for using seatd with greetd.
4. Gtkgreet reads desktop sessions from the file /etc/greetd/environments, So create the file with the list of login environments/desktop sessions. Instead of listing sway a wrapper script like sway-run can be used.

   Contents of /etc/greetd/environments

   sway-run
5. If using cage, the config file appears as follows:

   Contents of /etc/greetd/config.toml

   [default_session] command = "cage -s -- gtkgreet" # Uncomment below command, if you have only one desktop session. # command = "cage -s -- gtkgreet --command sway-run" user = "greetd"
6. Instead of cage, sway or any other wayland compositor can be used by setting the greetd config file:

   Contents of /etc/greetd/config.toml

   [default_session] command = "sway --config /etc/greetd/sway-config" user = "greetd"
7. Create a dedicated sway config file that runs the greeter and terminates when it dies:

   Contents of /etc/greetd/sway-config

   exec "gtkgreet -l -s /etc/greetd/gtkgreet.css; swaymsg exit"
8. Once you have completed the above configuration, enable and start greetd:

   # rc-update add greetd # rc-service greetd start

Using seatd with greetd

When seatd is used, following additional configuration is required.

1. For graphical greeters like gtkgreet, the user greetd needs the seatd group:

   # adduser greetd seat

2. Append rc_need=seatd in the following file:

   Contents of /etc/conf.d/greetd

   ... rc_need=seatd
3. User greetd also needs XDG_RUNTIME_DIR.

See also

• greetd wiki
• Arch wiki