Lock screen on usb remove

Simple udev rule to run a script when a chosen USB device is removed. This example locks the screen and shuts the computer down in 5 minutes.

Created for Ubuntu 20.04 although the UDEV rule will likely work in other versions and GNU/Linux distros.

The executable script will only work for Ubuntu with GNOME.

Deployment

Insert the USB device you want to create a rule for.

Run the udevadm monitor.

$ udevadm monitor --kernel --property --subsystem-match=usb | grep PRODUCT

Remove the device and note down the product id. You should get something like this.

PRODUCT=90c/1000/1100

Create a new .rules file in /etc/udev/rules.d/.

ACTION=="remove", SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ENV{PRODUCT}=="$product_id", RUN+="/bin/su $user --command='$path/stop.sh'"

Where $user is your host name, $path is the path to the executable and $product_id is the previously obtained id.

Note: remove can be replaced with add to run script on USB insertion.

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE.md file for details