Seatd: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 12:15, 16 August 2025

Seatd is a seat management daemon, that does everything it needs to do. Nothing more, nothing less. Depends only on libc. Seat management takes care of mediating access to shared devices (graphics, input), without requiring the applications needing access to be root.

When using elogind, seatd is not required and viceversa. Don't add both to auto-start.

Prerequisites

Seatd requires that XDG_RUNTIME_DIR is set before starting your Wayland compositor.

Installation

Install the seatd package:

# apk add seatd

Configuration

Service management

To add the seatd service to auto-start using OpenRC:

# rc-update add seatd # rc-service seatd start

To add the currently logged in user to seat group issue the command:

$ doas adduser $USER seat

If you are already logged in as a $USER, you will need to relogin.

Polkit

Polkit can be configured and used for authentication with seatd with certain limitations. Since seatd doesn't provide detailed session tracking, polkit rules that rely on these properties (e.g., subject.active, subject.local) cannot be evaluated. Hence graphical, session-aware polkit authentication agents are not supported.

Refer to sample polkit rule file that works with seatd.

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-Seatd is a seat management daemon, that does everything it needs to do. Nothing more, nothing less. Depends only on libc. Seat management takes care of mediating access to shared devices (graphics, input), without requiring the applications needing access to be root.
+{{Verified|0}}[https://man.sr.ht/~kennylevinsen/seatd/ Seatd] is a [[Seat manager|seat management]] daemon, that does everything it needs to do. Nothing more, nothing less. Depends only on libc. Seat management takes care of mediating access to shared devices (graphics, input), without requiring the applications needing access to be root.
 When using [[elogind]], seatd is not required and viceversa. Don't add both to auto-start.
+== Prerequisites ==
+* Seatd requires that [[XDG_RUNTIME_DIR]] is set before starting your [[Wayland]] compositor.
 == Installation ==
-{{Cmd|apk add {{Pkg|seatd}}       # install seatd
+Install the {{Pkg|seatd}} package:{{Cmd|# apk add {{Pkg|seatd}}}}
-rc-update add seatd # configure it to auto-start
-service seatd start # start it now
-adduser $USER seat  # allow current user to access seatd
-}}
-If you are already logged in as a <code>$USER</code>, you will need to relogin.
 == Configuration ==
-Seatd is the light weight solution for [[sway]] and other [[Wayland]] compositors compared to [[elogind]]. When using seatd, few mandatory steps  are to be performed.
+=== Service management ===
+To add the {{ic|seatd}} service to auto-start using [[OpenRC]]: {{Cmd|<nowiki># rc-update add seatd
+# rc-service seatd start </nowiki>}}
-=== Configure XDG_RUNTIME_DIR ===
+To add the currently logged in user to {{ic|seat}} group issue the command: {{Cmd|$ doas adduser $USER seat}}
-Set the variable [[XDG_RUNTIME_DIR]]. This step is required for all [[Wayland]] compositors.
-=== Environment variables ===
+If you are already logged in as a <code>$USER</code>, you will need to relogin.
-Additional environment variables needs to be set for all [[Wayland]] compositors to work properly with seatd:
-* <code>XDG_SESSION_TYPE=wayland</code>
-* <code>LIBSEAT_BACKEND=seatd</code>
-* <code>XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=sway</code>
-The variable <code>XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP</code> must be suitably adjusted for other [[:Category:Compositor|Compositors]].
+=== Polkit ===
-=== Seatd and Sway ===
+[[Polkit#Using polkit with seatd|Polkit]] can be configured and used for authentication with seatd with certain limitations. Since seatd doesn't provide detailed session tracking, polkit rules that rely on these properties (e.g., subject.active, subject.local) cannot be evaluated. Hence graphical, session-aware [[Polkit#Authentication agents|polkit authentication agents]] are not supported.
-When using seatd, [[sway]] must be started with above [[#Environment variables|Environment variables]] and [[D-Bus]] as shown below:
+Refer to [[Polkit#Example1|sample polkit rule file]] that works with seatd.
-{{Cat|~/.profile|<nowiki>
+== See also ==
-# Environment variables required for seatd
-export XDG_SESSION_TYPE=wayland
-export LIBSEAT_BACKEND=seatd
-export XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=sway
-export XDG_VTNR=$(basename "$(tty)" | sed 's/tty//')
-#Start sway with DBUS (only in TTY1)
-if [ -z "$WAYLAND_DISPLAY" ] && [ "$XDG_VTNR" -eq 1 ]; then
-    exec dbus-run-session sway
-fi
-</nowiki>}}
-Ensure that your shell reads and executes the '''if''' condition in {{Path|.profile}}. Sway can also be launched with a [[Sway#Starting_sway|wrapper script]] with seatd. If using [[elogind]], then none of the above code snippets are required.
-== See Also ==
 * [https://man.sr.ht/~kennylevinsen/seatd/ seatd documentation]
 * [https://github.com/swaywm/sway/wiki/Setting-environmental-variables sway wiki]
-[[Category:Desktop]]
 [[Category:Seat_manager]]
-[[Category:Wayland]]