Question

4

Hibernating from cron

rated 0 times [ 4] [ 0] / answers: 1 / hits: 4058 / 1 Year ago, tue, january 17, 2023, 1:47:19

I am trying to hibernate from cron using the command systemctl hibernate. However, I am getting the following error:

Failed to set wall message, ignoring: Interactive authentication required.

Failed to hibernate system via logind: Interactive authentication required.

Failed to start hibernate.target: Interactive authentication required.

See system logs and 'systemctl status hibernate.target' for details.

If I execute the above command manually from terminal, it works as expected.

How do I hibernate from cron?

I am using Ubuntu 16.04.

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fulerio

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4 Years ago

answered 1 Year ago steaocyte · Accepted Answer

This is happening because it needs root privileges.

The solution is to add the hibernate command using sudo crontab -e -u root instead of crontab -e.

polkit is necessary for power management as an unprivileged user. If
you are in a local systemd-logind user session and no other session is
active, the following commands will work without root privileges. If
not (for example, because another user is logged into a tty), systemd
will automatically ask you for the root password.

Power management commands:

systemctl reboot|poweroff|suspend|hibernate|hybrid-sleep

Reference: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Systemd#Power_management