Manual: dbus-launch
DBUS-LAUNCH(1) User Commands DBUS-LAUNCH(1)
NAME
dbus-launch - Utility to start a message bus from a shell script
SYNOPSIS
dbus-launch [--version] [--help] [--sh-syntax] [--csh-syntax] [--auto-syntax] [--binary-syntax] [--close-stderr]
[--exit-with-session] [--exit-with-x11] [--autolaunch=MACHINEID] [--config-file=FILENAME] [PROGRAM]
[ARGS...]
DESCRIPTION
The dbus-launch command is used to start a session bus instance of dbus-daemon from a shell script. It would normally
be called from a user's login scripts. Unlike the daemon itself, dbus-launch exits, so backticks or the $() construct
can be used to read information from dbus-launch.
With no arguments, dbus-launch will launch a session bus instance and print the address and PID of that instance to
standard output.
You may specify a program to be run; in this case, dbus-launch will launch a session bus instance, set the
appropriate environment variables so the specified program can find the bus, and then execute the specified program,
with the specified arguments. See below for examples.
If you launch a program, dbus-launch will not print the information about the new bus to standard output.
When dbus-launch prints bus information to standard output, by default it is in a simple key-value pairs format.
However, you may request several alternate syntaxes using the --sh-syntax, --csh-syntax, --binary-syntax, or
--auto-syntax options. Several of these cause dbus-launch to emit shell code to set up the environment.
With the --auto-syntax option, dbus-launch looks at the value of the SHELL environment variable to determine which
shell syntax should be used. If SHELL ends in "csh", then csh-compatible code is emitted; otherwise Bourne shell code
is emitted. Instead of passing --auto-syntax, you may explicitly specify a particular one by using --sh-syntax for
Bourne syntax, or --csh-syntax for csh syntax. In scripts, it's more robust to avoid --auto-syntax and you hopefully
know which shell your script is written in.
See https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/dbus/ for more information about D-Bus. See also the man page for
dbus-daemon.
EXAMPLES
Distributions running dbus-launch as part of a standard X session should run dbus-launch --exit-with-session after
the X server has started and become available, as a wrapper around the "main" X client (typically a session manager
or window manager), as in these examples:
dbus-launch --exit-with-session gnome-session
dbus-launch --exit-with-session openbox
dbus-launch --exit-with-session ~/.xsession
If your distribution does not do this, you can achieve similar results by running your session or window manager in
the same way in a script run by your X session, such as ~/.xsession, ~/.xinitrc or ~/.Xclients.
To start a D-Bus session within a text-mode session, do not use dbus-launch. Instead, see dbus-run-session(1).
## test for an existing bus daemon, just to be safe
if test -z "$DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS" ; then
## if not found, launch a new one
eval `dbus-launch --sh-syntax`
echo "D-Bus per-session daemon address is: $DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS"
fi
Note that in this case, dbus-launch will exit, and dbus-daemon will not be terminated automatically on logout.
AUTOMATIC LAUNCHING
If DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS is not set for a process that tries to use D-Bus, by default the process will attempt to
invoke dbus-launch with the --autolaunch option to start up a new session bus or find the existing bus address on the
X display or in a file in ~/.dbus/session-bus/
Whenever an autolaunch occurs, the application that had to start a new bus will be in its own little world; it can
effectively end up starting a whole new session if it tries to use a lot of bus services. This can be suboptimal or
even totally broken, depending on the app and what it tries to do.
There are two common reasons for autolaunch. One is ssh to a remote machine. The ideal fix for that would be
forwarding of DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS in the same way that DISPLAY is forwarded. In the meantime, you can edit the
session.conf config file to have your session bus listen on TCP, and manually set DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS, if you
like.
The second common reason for autolaunch is an su to another user, and display of X applications running as the second
user on the display belonging to the first user. Perhaps the ideal fix in this case would be to allow the second user
to connect to the session bus of the first user, just as they can connect to the first user's display. However, a
mechanism for that has not been coded.
You can always avoid autolaunch by manually setting DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS. Autolaunch happens because the default
address if none is set is "autolaunch:", so if any other address is set there will be no autolaunch. You can however
include autolaunch in an explicit session bus address as a fallback, for example
DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS="something:,autolaunch:" - in that case if the first address doesn't work, processes will
autolaunch. (The bus address variable contains a comma-separated list of addresses to try.)
The --autolaunch option is considered an internal implementation detail of libdbus, and in fact there are plans to
change it. There's no real reason to use it outside of the libdbus implementation anyhow.
OPTIONS
The following options are supported:
--auto-syntax
Choose --csh-syntax or --sh-syntax based on the SHELL environment variable.
--binary-syntax
Write to stdout a nul-terminated bus address, then the bus PID as a binary integer of size sizeof(pid_t), then
the bus X window ID as a binary integer of size sizeof(long). Integers are in the machine's byte order, not
network byte order or any other canonical byte order.
--close-stderr
Close the standard error output stream before starting the D-Bus daemon. This is useful if you want to capture
dbus-launch error messages but you don't want dbus-daemon to keep the stream open to your application.
--config-file=FILENAME
Pass --config-file=FILENAME to the bus daemon, instead of passing it the --session argument. See the man page for
dbus-daemon
--csh-syntax
Emit csh compatible code to set up environment variables.
--exit-with-x11
If this option is provided, a persistent "babysitter" process will be created, and will connect to the X server.
If it cannot do so, launching fails. If the "babysitter" process loses its X connection, it kills the message bus
daemon, disconnecting all of its clients (which should exit in response). This avoids having leftover daemon
processes from a user X session, after the X session has ended.
--exit-with-session
If this option is provided, a persistent "babysitter" process will be created, as if for --exit-with-x11. If it
cannot connect to the X server, it will monitor the terminal from which dbus-launch was started instead, and if
it gets a HUP on stdin, the message bus daemon will be killed. This option is not recommended, since it will
consume input from the terminal where it was started; it is mainly provided for backwards compatibility.
--autolaunch=MACHINEID
This option implies that dbus-launch should scan for a previously-started session and reuse the values found
there. If no session is found, it will start a new session. The --exit-with-session option is implied if
--autolaunch is given. This option is for the exclusive use of libdbus, you do not want to use it manually. It
may change in the future.
--sh-syntax
Emit Bourne-shell compatible code to set up environment variables.
--version
Print the version of dbus-launch
--help
Print the help info of dbus-launch
NOTES
If you run dbus-launch myapp (with any other options), dbus-daemon will not exit when myapp terminates: this is
because myapp is assumed to be part of a larger session, rather than a session in its own right.
AUTHOR
See https://dbus.freedesktop.org/doc/AUTHORS
BUGS
Please send bug reports to the D-Bus mailing list or bug tracker, see https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/dbus/
D-Bus 1.16.2 DBUS-LAUNCH(1)