On 2026-03-20, Daniel Sterling <[email protected]> wrote: > Found this as well which has more information about how systemd might > shut down your user slice > > https://serverfault.com/questions/1137788/how-to-debug-systemd-shutdown-failing-to-gracefully-shutdown > which lnks to > https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/latest/systemd.kill.html#KillMode= > > if you've verified your process gets a KILL signal and no TERM before > hand, and the various unit / sessions settings are configured to send > TERM before KILL, I guess that would be a systemd bug. but I guess, > more likely than a bug, would be that the (potentially complicated) > interaction between how systemd manages processes and how it can be > configured is not configured to send a TERM first. > > since there doesn't seem to be a way to turn on debugging so systemd > tells you what it's doing, you may have to either code up a patch to > add more logging to systemd, or manually check the (again, potentially > complicated) settings to see how those settings are telling systemd to > kill your user session / slice. that of course also requires > understanding what a session or slice even is, which I don't claim to > know. > > not trying to be unhelpful here -- I was looking into this cuz I > wanted to learn more about systemd, and the answer seems to be "it's > potentially quite complicated"
The text editor is the OP's version (whatever that means) of microemacs (whatever that is); it seems conceivable that the bug could be in the editor, rather than in systemd. > On Fri, Mar 20, 2026 at 9:07 AM Daniel Sterling ><[email protected]> wrote: >> >> from https://github.com/systemd/systemd/blob/main/src/shutdown/shutdown.c >> >> it looks like systemd does indeed try to term then kill all processes >> >> log_info("Sending SIGTERM to remaining processes..."); >> broadcast_signal(SIGTERM, true, true, arg_timeout); >> >> log_info("Sending SIGKILL to remaining processes..."); >> broadcast_signal(SIGKILL, true, false, arg_timeout); >> >> do you see those entries in your logs? >> >> On Fri, Mar 20, 2026 at 8:33 AM alain williams <[email protected]> wrote: >> > >> > I find that when I do a reboot or poweroff (from command line) running >> > processes are not being sent SIGTERM. The one that really annoys me is a >> > text >> > editor not receiving it and thus me losing work. >> > >> > The systemd documentation says that it should be sent; good old init used >> > to do >> > this. >> > >> > Is the documentation wrong or do I need to tweak some config somewhere ? >> > >> > I am running Debian 13 with the mate desktop. MATE Terminal provides the >> > terminal emulation. The editor is my own version of microemacs (which does >> > handle SIGTERM correctly). >> > >> > The GUI (mate, etc) is actually irrelevant - the same thing happens to the >> > editor being run on a console. >> > >> > TIA >> > >> > -- >> > Alain Williams >> > Linux/GNU Consultant - Mail systems, Web sites, Networking, Programmer, IT >> > Lecturer. >> > +44 (0) 787 668 0256 https://www.phcomp.co.uk/ >> > Parliament Hill Computers. Registration Information: >> > https://www.phcomp.co.uk/Contact.html >> > #include <std_disclaimer.h> >> > > >
