standalone PAM for xdg-runtime dir ?

[Mark Hindley]

Hi,

On Wed, Jun 10, 2026 at 02:23:32PM +0200, Matthias Geiger wrote:
> This https://github.com/cernops/pam_xdg_runtime_dir is a standalone PAM
> module that just creates that. Am I correct in assuming this would me to
> just allow me to run seatd with my window manager?

I don't think it is that simple.

IIUC, the relevant window manager needs to have libseat support added. Libseat
then uses whichever backend (logind, elogind, seatd) it finds or is configured
to use by the runtime environment variable LIBSEAT_BACKEND.

AFAIK no window managers have had libseat support added. Devuan has a patch for
xorg-server[1] which means you can use startx as non-root using seatd (without
dbus or logind).

Some window managers (I think lightdm and slim) still have consolekit
support. Consolekit creates XDG_RUNTIME_DIR and related. However, Debian's
polkit lacks consolekit support. Again, you will need Devuan where both
consolekit and elogind flavours of polkit are available.

HTH

Best wishes

Mark

[1]  https://git.devuan.org/devuan/xorg-server/src/branch/suites/experimental/debian/patches/0001-Support-libseat.patch