howto.coytis.me

Kiosk Monitor Off at Night

2 min read

Kiosk Monitor Off at Night

Scripts to have the dashboard monitor on the Ubuntu Jumpbox + Dashboard Kiosk turn off at night.

Turn display off Saved as monitorsoff

busctl --user set-property org.gnome.Mutter.DisplayConfig /org/gnome/Mutter/DisplayConfig org.gnome.Mutter.DisplayConfig PowerSaveMode i 1

Turn display on Saved as monitorson

busctl --user set-property org.gnome.Mutter.DisplayConfig /org/gnome/Mutter/DisplayConfig org.gnome.Mutter.DisplayConfig PowerSaveMode i 0

Has to be ran on Kiosk Account

Crontab

crontab -e

0 23 * * * /home/kiosk/scripts/monitorsoff.sh
0 7 * * * /home/kiosk/scripts/monitorson.sh

Why the crontab didn’t fire

busctl --user talks to the kiosk user’s session D-Bus. A terminal or SSH login sets up the variables that point at it (XDG_RUNTIME_DIR, DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS). Cron runs with an almost empty environment, so busctl can’t find the bus and fails without saying anything. The fix is to set both variables at the top of each script:

#!/bin/bash
export XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/run/user/$(id -u)
export DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS=unix:path=$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/bus
busctl --user set-property org.gnome.Mutter.DisplayConfig /org/gnome/Mutter/DisplayConfig org.gnome.Mutter.DisplayConfig PowerSaveMode i 1

(i 0 in monitorson.sh.)

Also check:

  • The crontab is the kiosk user’s (crontab -l as kiosk), not root’s or coytis’s.
  • The scripts are executable: chmod +x /home/kiosk/scripts/monitor*.sh.
  • The path in the crontab (/home/kiosk/scripts/monitorsoff.sh) is the real file. The SSH command calls monitorsoff with no .sh, so it may be running a different copy.
  • To see what cron is doing, send its output to a log: 0 23 * * * /home/kiosk/scripts/monitorsoff.sh >> /home/kiosk/scripts/cron.log 2>&1. Also check grep CRON /var/log/syslog.
  • To test quickly without waiting for 11pm, set a cron entry 2 minutes ahead, or run the script with an empty environment the way cron does: env -i /home/kiosk/scripts/monitorsoff.sh.

Scripts to do it through SSH Set up on the X1

#!/bin/bash
ssh kiosk@192.168.1.67 "monitorsoff"

You can guess how to make the monitorson one.

Related: Linux commands, GNOME Super Key Fix

Followup

  • 192.168.1.67 added to Network Reference as coysrvdesk ✅ 2026-09-28
  • Scripts saved as monitorsoff/monitorson on coysrvdesk, fired by kiosk’s crontab ✅ 2026-09-28
  • Add the two export lines to both scripts and confirm cron actually turns the screen off at 23:00. The fix hasn’t been tested yet. ✅ 2026-10-17

Graph View