Configure lockscreen for i3 window manager.

i3autolock.md

The i3-wm does not come with a keybinding to lock the screen or a preconfigured auto lockscreen. This gist describes how to setup both using i3lock and xautolock. i3lock is a minimalistic lockscreen and xautolock monitors mouse and keyboard activities to automatically lock the screen after a certain time of beiing inactive.

First get the tools if neccessary. E.g. sudo apt install i3lock xautolock.

To setup the keybinding Ctrl+Alt+l (last one is a lowercase L) to lock the screen append the following lines to the i3 configuration file located at ~/.config/i3/config.

# keybinding to lock screen
bindsym Control+Mod1+l exec "i3lock -c 000000"

-c 000000 makes the screen turn black instead of the default white after the screen is locked.

Then add a line to the same config file to run xautolock at startup.

# auto lock the screen
exec "xautolock -detectsleep -time 3 -locker \"i3lock -c 000000\""

-detectsleep locks the screen properly when the computer goes to sleep, -time 3 sets the time after which to lock to 3 minutes and -locker "..." sets up i3lock as the command to lock.

Finally reload the config file via $mod+Shift+r.

Thanks for this information!

nice

is it possbile to change the white screen with my own

is it possbile to change the white screen with my own

Setting a png image is supported by i3lock according to their github repository.
I don't have i3lock installed anymore, so I can't check the options with -help, but at in the source code it looks like i3lock -i yourimage.png is the right syntax.

So just change exec "xautolock -detectsleep -time 3 -locker \"i3lock -c 000000\"" to exec "xautolock -detectsleep -time 3 -locker \"i3lock -i yourimage.png\""

Thank you! It works like a charm.

The Image in the lockscreen did not use the right resolution, I want to set it 1920x1080 how to do that??

The Image in the lockscreen did not use the right resolution, I want to set it 1920x1080 how to do that??

i3lock does not have an image scaling feature to my knowledge hence we need to convert the image to monitor resolution (1920x1080 in this case) and use that new image with i3lock. I assume you've already found the solution. If not, you an use this method.

The Image in the lockscreen did not use the right resolution, I want to set it 1920x1080 how to do that??

You can use betterlockscreen, it uses ImageMagick for manipulate the images.

https://github.com/betterlockscreen/betterlockscreen - you need to install few more dependencies and imagemagick to get this work well
https://imagemagick.org/

So the code will look like this

betterlockscreen

bindsym $mod+i exec betterlockscreen -l dim

Auto Lock

exec "xautolock -detectsleep -time 1 -locker "betterlockscreen -l dim""

Ohh, Thank You

the keybind worked for me, auto detection didn't. it still shows a white screen

the keybind worked for me, auto detection didn't. it still shows a white screen

okay nevermind reboot did it

is it possbile to change the white screen with my own

Setting a png image is supported by i3lock according to their github repository. I don't have i3lock installed anymore, so I can't check the options with -help, but at in the source code it looks like i3lock -i yourimage.png is the right syntax.

So just change exec "xautolock -detectsleep -time 3 -locker \"i3lock -c 000000\"" to exec "xautolock -detectsleep -time 3 -locker \"i3lock -i yourimage.png\""

I did following to my kali config, and it is not showing any image on the lockscreen. Any help?

# auto lock the screen
exec "xautolock -detectsleep -time 3 -locker \"i3lock -i /home/chiggy/Downloads/luca-bravo-TaCk3NspYe0-unsplash.png\""

All I see is a blank screen.