How to properly end a KDE session from shell without root privileges
You can send a logout command via dbus to KDE, which should (if it can) terminate the session.
qdbus org.kde.ksmserver /KSMServer logout 0 0 0
dbus is a messaging system that lets applications communicate with each other, and the qdbus
command is a utility for sending dbus messages to applications.
Applications register with dbus, and the ksmserver
part of KDE is the session manager - it looks after who is logged in.
So we are sending a message to ksmserver
to the /KSMServer
interface and telling it to logout. The message we are sending is the exact same message that is sent to KSM when you click on the logout icon on your desktop.
The three zeros are parameters and can alter the type of logout we are doing:
First parameter:
- 0 = Do not wait for confirmation
- 1 = Wait for confirmation (with a 30 second timeout)
Second parameter:
- -1 = Prompt for action, defaulting to shutdown (Only makes sense when waiting for confirmation.)
- 0 = Logout
- 1 = Restart
- 2 = Shutdown
The third parameter is the "when" parameter, but it isn't clear what its impact is.
The accepted answer is a solution specific for KDE5, a more generic approach would be
loginctl list-sessions
loginctl terminate-session <id>
or
loginctl terminate-user <username>
Source
There are more possible commands:
Session Commands:
list-sessions List sessions
session-status [ID...] Show session status
show-session [ID...] Show properties of sessions or the manager
activate [ID] Activate a session
lock-session [ID...] Screen lock one or more sessions
unlock-session [ID...] Screen unlock one or more sessions
lock-sessions Screen lock all current sessions
unlock-sessions Screen unlock all current sessions
terminate-session ID... Terminate one or more sessions
kill-session ID... Send signal to processes of a session
User Commands:
list-users List users
user-status [USER...] Show user status
show-user [USER...] Show properties of users or the manager
enable-linger [USER...] Enable linger state of one or more users
disable-linger [USER...] Disable linger state of one or more users
terminate-user USER... Terminate all sessions of one or more users
kill-user USER... Send signal to processes of a user
Seat Commands:
list-seats List seats
seat-status [NAME...] Show seat status
show-seat [NAME...] Show properties of seats or the manager
attach NAME DEVICE... Attach one or more devices to a seat
flush-devices Flush all device associations
terminate-seat NAME... Terminate all sessions on one or more seats