Server/Headless Linux: enable automatic login to a user on boot but when the user logs out, it will not re-login back into the user?

On Ubuntu Server and Arch I was able to change the following line in /lib/systemd/system/getty@.service

# Before
ExecStart=-/sbin/agetty -o '-p -- \\u' --noclear %I $TERM


# After
ExecStart=-/sbin/agetty --noissue --autologin john %I $TERM Type=idle

And it works, that it will login to the user john but when I logout of the user john with using exit in the terminal, it logs john back in. Is there a way to change this ExecStart setting to enable auto login for a user on startup but only on startup?

3 Comments

Vilian@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 2y

maybe a second service, that when you log in, the service get enabled, and that service block your first service?

miroslav@programming.dev · 2 pts · 2y (1 reply)

Try adding these two options to the service

Type=oneshot
RemainAfterExit=yes

trymeout@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 2y

Changing Type=oneshot and adding RemainAfterExit=yes underneath does not allow me to boot into my system. I get this as the last terminal message

[ OK ] Reached target Cloud-init target.

No biggie to fix since I did this in a Virtual machine and could restore to an older snapshot.