This tutorial shows how to enable/disable Keyboard, Mouse, Lid Open, and/or other devices events from waking up your Ubuntu PC or laptop from sleep.

By default, open laptop lid, press any key on keyboard, or press sleep button can wake up your computer from suspend or hibernation state. If you want, you can configure Ubuntu to ignore certain wakeup triggers that you don’t want.

image from pixabay.com

This tutorial is tested on ThinkPad t480s with Ubuntu 24.04. It should also work on other Linux and other devices, but the “Lid Open” action may vary!

Step 1: Tell Who Can Wake up your Computer

Usually, user can read the /proc/acpi/wakeup file, for a list of enabled and disabled wakeup triggers.

1. First, press Ctrl+Alt+T to open up a terminal window, then run command to list enabled wakeup triggers:

cat /proc/acpi/wakeup |grep enabled

Skip |grep enabled in the command will show all the triggers either enabled or disabled.

In the output, you’ll see vendor-specific code names, e.g., XHC (USB 3.0), SLPB (sleep button), LID (laptop lid), their sysfs IDs, as well as in which sleep level (s3 – suspend, s4 – hibernate) they can wake up from.

2. For PCI devices, you may run one more command to tell more about what they are:

lspci |grep -e "xx:xx.x" -e "xx:xx.x" -e "xx:xx.x" -e "xx:xx.x"

In the command, replace xx:xx.x according to the sysfs IDs (the second half) you got in last command. And, add/remove -e "xx:xx.x" according to how many PCI devices you want to list.

As the screenshot below shows you, in my case I can wake up my computer from:

• GLAN, pci:0000:00:1f.6, the wired network card, from S4 (also includes S3/S2/S1) hibernation state.
• XHC, pci:0000:00:14.0, USB 3.0 device, from S3 (sleep to RAM) suspend state.
• PXSX, pci:0000:04:00.0, Thunderbolt 3 device, from S4 hibernate state.
• SLPB (sleep button), LID (laptop lid), and few other PCIe devices.

Step 2: Disable Wake up from Certain PCI Device

All the devices listed above in last step have their own /sys/bus/ sub-folders, that are created automatically on detection (usually on startup, unless you hot-plug them out, then in).

Each sub-folder contains a power/wakeup file that contain the key value to either “enabled” or “disabled” wake up from sleep.

To disable one, simply run command:

echo disabled | sudo tee /sys/bus/pci/devices/0000:00:14.0/power/wakeup

Here replace 0000:00:14.0 according to the ID you got in last command, to disable any PCI trigger as you want. Or, replace disabled with enabled to enable the trigger.

And, you can re-run the command again and again with different sysfs IDs to disable/enable multiple wakeup triggers.

To verify, either re-run cat /proc/acpi/wakeup command, or just suspend your computer and try using the triggers you just disabled to wake it up.

Use udev rules to make it permanent

The last echo command works temporarily until reboot or re-plug the devices. To make it persistent even after reboot, you may create a udev rules.

1. First, run command to create (and edit) a custom udev rules file (40-disable-wakeup-triggers.rules in the case):

sudo gnome-text-editor /etc/udev/rules.d/40-disable-wakeup-triggers.rules

Here replace gnome-text-editor according to your desktop environment, gedit for old GNOME (22.04 and earlier), musepad for XFCE, or use nano instead that works in most desktops.

2. When file opens, add the line below:

ACTION=="add", KERNEL=="0000:00:14.0", SUBSYSTEM=="pci", ATTR{power/wakeup}="disabled"

Here:

• ACTION=="add" tell to do the action on detection of the device.
• KERNEL=="0000:00:14.0", SUBSYSTEM=="pci" are used to identify the device. Replace the ID accordingly.
• ATTR{power/wakeup}="disabled" (here’s only one “=”) tell to write “disabled” to the power/wakeup so to disable the trigger.

And, you may add multiple lines with different IDs (for the KERNEL value) to disable or enable multiple triggers on detection.

After saving the file (for nano, press Ctrl+S then Ctrl+X), restart computer to apply changes.

(Optional) Disable Wake up from Certain USB Device

In last step, disable XHC (pci:0000:00:14.0 in my case) will stop all USB 3.0 device from waking up the computer.

However, if you want to disable certain USB device (e.g., USB keyboard), while leaving other USB devices unchanged, do the steps below step by step.

NOTE: For this step to work, you need to leave XHC enabled (configured in last step).

1. First, run the command below to tell all connected USB devices as well as their IDs.

lsusb

In my case, I have USB mouse with ID 1c4f:0034, and USB keyboard with ID 3151:3020. The first 4 hexadecimal numbers is the vendor ID, while the second 4 is the product ID.

Then, run the command below (replace product ID ‘3020’ to yours) will tell the /sys/bus folder for the USB device.

grep 3020 /sys/bus/usb/devices/*/idProduct

2. To temporarily disable a USB device from waking up system from sleep, use command:

echo disabled | sudo tee /sys/bus/usb/devices/1-2/power/wakeup

Here replace /sys/bus/usb/devices/1-2 with the folder PATH according to what you got in last command. And, it will work until re-boot or you re-plugin the USB device.

3. To make it permanent, also create a udev rule via command (replace gnome-text-editor to your text editor):

sudo gnome-text-editor /etc/udev/rules.d/40-disable-wakeup-triggers.rules

When file opens, write the line below (replace 3151 and 3020 to yours):

ACTION=="add|change", SUBSYSTEM=="usb", DRIVERS=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="3151", ATTRS{idProduct}=="3020", ATTR{power/wakeup}="disabled"

Here ACTION=="add|change" tells to try reapplying rules upon every device change, since USB device is hot-plugable.

Prevent Laptop Lid Open from Waking up Ubuntu

NOTE: This step MAY or MAY NOT work on your laptop!! There seems no unified way to disable the lid open waking up feature. If you know, please tell me by leaving comment below.

Most laptops today support for waking up on lid open action. To enable/disable this feature, first you need to try the option in BIOS settings.

If your BIOS settings page does NOT include that option, you may try the steps below one by one, which however may NOT work in some laptops.

1. First, open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run the command below to find out the /sys/bus sub-folder for the Lid:

sudo dmesg |grep Lid

In my case, it’s /devices/LNXSYSTM:00/LNXSYBUS:00/PNP0C0D:00/.

2. Then, try to send “disabled” to power/wakeup file for that device folder (replace the bold text accordingly).

echo disabled | sudo tee /sys/devices/LNXSYSTM:00/LNXSYBUS:00/PNP0C0D:00/power/wakeup

When done, suspend your computer then close the lid. Finally, try opening lid a few moments later and see if it wakes up on the action. If it does NOT work, try setting lid switch action to ignore.

3. If the last step works, then you can create a udev rule to make it permanent.

First, run command to find out the key parameters to identify the device (replace bold text according to last command).

udevadm info -q all -a /sys/devices/LNXSYSTM:00/LNXSYBUS:00/PNP0C0D:00/

In my case (see the screenshot), KERNEL=="PNP0C0D:00", SUBSYSTEM=="acpi", and DRIVER=="button" is what I need for udev rules.

Next, run command to create (and edit) a udev rule (replace gnome-text-editor accordingly):

sudo gnome-text-editor /etc/udev/rules.d/40-disable-wakeup-triggers.rules

While file opens, add line below and save:

ACTION=="add", KERNEL=="PNP0C0D:00", SUBSYSTEM=="acpi", DRIVER=="button", ATTR{power/wakeup}="disabled"

The udev rule will take action in next boot of the Ubuntu Linux system.