Arch Linux

Jamess

Member

Registered: 2010-07-09

Posts: 17

Disable keyboard at runlevel 3

Hi,

I would like to disable the internal keyboard on my HP Compaq NC8000 laptop at runlevel 3. Is this possible? Or would it be possible to lock the keyboard somehow? I can disable it in X but I don't want to run an Xserver. I can also disable it by adding i8042.nokbd to the kernel boot line, but then I can't access it with other software either.

thanks

James

Jamess

Member

Registered: 2010-07-09

Posts: 17

Re: Disable keyboard at runlevel 3

No one? Just to clarify I want to boot to a virtual console and disable keyboard input. Runlevel is actually unimportant. Vlock can lock the virtual console but still allows input from the keyboard. I suppose I could run a simple xserver like twm or xterm and disable mouse and keyboard from there...

Lone_Wolf

Administrator

From: Netherlands, Europe

Registered: 2005-10-04

Posts: 15,392

Re: Disable keyboard at runlevel 3

What method are you using to disable keyboard / mouse in X ?
Maybe that method is applicable to CLI also.

Maybe you could configure the virtual console to accept only remote input (not sure if that is possible) ?

Last edited by Lone_Wolf (2012-05-04 13:32:29)

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Disliking systemd intensely, but not satisfied with alternatives so focusing on taming systemd.

clean chroot building not flexible enough ?
Try clean chroot manager by graysky

Jamess

Member

Registered: 2010-07-09

Posts: 17

Re: Disable keyboard at runlevel 3

I currently have an automatic login to twm and I've changed /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-evdev.conf to say:

Section "InputClass"
        Identifier "evdev keyboard catchall"
        MatchIsKeyboard "off"
        MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
        Driver "evdev"
	Option "Xkblayout" "gb"
EndSection

#Section "InputClass"
#        Identifier "evdev touchpad catchall"
#        MatchIsTouchpad "off"
#        MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
#        Driver "evdev"
#EndSection

MatchIsKeyboard "off" works for the keyboard, but I had to comment out the touchpad to disable it. This is kind of working for now, but it seems unnecessary to run an xserver just for this? I'm currently logging into the machine via ssh to administer it which is fine, as this is the only control I need/want. I want to use the internal keyboard exclusively with other software.