How to enable the Ctrl+Alt+Backspace shortcut in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7?

Solution Verified - Updated -

Environment

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7
  • GNOME 3
  • KDE

Issue

  • The Ctrl+Alt+Backspace shortcut key combination is used for terminating the X server. It used to work in RHEL 6, but it's not working in RHEL 7. Is there any way to enable this shortcut?

Resolution

GNOME

  • To enable the Ctrl+Alt+Backspace shortcut to forcibly terminate the X server by default for all users, set the org.gnome.desktop.input-sources.xkb-options dconf key. More information is available in the RHEL 7 documentation.

  • The file for the dconf setting should contain the following lines:

    [org/gnome/desktop/input-sources]
xkb-options=['terminate:ctrl_alt_bksp']

KDE

  • Go to System Settings ==> Input Devices ==> Keyboard ==> Advanced => Key sequence to kill the x server ==> ctrl-alt-backspace.

Root Cause

The traditional key combination to kill the X server is disabled by default.

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