How to Prevent a Linux Laptop from Entering Sleep Mode When the Lid is Closed

Initially, I thought it would be a simple setting adjustment, so I casually Googled it. Sure enough, there was a unanimous solution: modify /etc/systemd/logind.conf, change HandleLidSwitch to ignore or lock, and then restart logind or reboot.

I tried this, but it didn’t work at all on my Thinkpad X230. I then tried changing some other options in the aforementioned file, but none worked, and surprisingly, Ubuntu even reported errors.

So, I reinstalled the more preferred Debian. Tried again, and it still didn’t work. Finally, I found a more brutal method.

systemctl mask sleep.target suspend.target hibernate.target hybrid-sleep.target

This directly points these units to /dev/null…

To revert, simply use:

systemctl unmask sleep.target suspend.target hibernate.target hybrid-sleep.target

It’s simple and effective.

Update:

If you only mask them, the CPU usage of systemd-logind will be very high because it continuously attempts to sleep. Therefore, you also need to change HandleLidSwitch and others to ignore. As follows:

HandleSuspendKey=ignore
HandleHibernateKey=ignore
HandleLidSwitch=ignore
HandleLidSwitchExternalPower=ignore
HandleLidSwitchDocked=ignore

Then, execute systemctl restart systemd-logind. For more details, refer to this: SystemD-LoginD High CPU Usage.