How to gracefully shutdown emacs daemon?

On login to Ubuntu, I start an Emacs (version 23) daemon using Ubuntu's Startup programs. I then start Emacs clients whenever I need to edit something. When I logoff from Ubuntu, it says Emacs is still running, of course. I need to attach a script somewhere to tell Gnome to shutdown emacs when I logoff/shutdown.

1. What should the script look like? "kill-emacs" doesn't seem to work.

2. Where should I put this script? There's nothing in the startup programs (System->Sessions menu) panel that looks useful. I'd prefer something that works in the user's account, rather than hacking the PostSession script or something else with root access.

ShreevatsaR is right, the answer is kill-emacs or save-buffers-kill-emacs, both of which are interactive, and so can be run from within Emacs with M-x save-buffers-kill-emacs. This is probably the best way to do it, since you will get to save modified files.

Another alternative is to make a shell file like this:

#!/bin/bash
emacsclient -e "(kill-emacs)"

Which you can run from wherever you like (menu icon, panel, etc).

This linuxquestions.org page has a Python script that can be run during login that listens for the 'save yourself' event that Gnome emits during shutdown. You could modify that to do the:

emacsclient -e '(save-buffers-kill-emacs)'

Official docs: https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/EmacsAsDaemon#toc8

Another addendum to ShreevatsaR: the python script works like a charm, but I'd suggest using

emacsclient -e '(let ((last-nonmenu-event nil))(save-buffers-kill-emacs))'

as command. Setting last-nonmenu-event to nil forces emacs into mouse-mode, so you get "nice" dialog boxes instead of prompts in the minibuffer.

Or even more fancy (somewhere in your emacs config):

(defun shutdown-emacs-server () (interactive)
(when (not (eq window-system 'x))
(message "Initializing x windows system.")
(x-initialize-window-system)
(when (not x-display-name) (setq x-display-name (getenv "DISPLAY")))
(select-frame (make-frame-on-display display '((window-system . x))))
)
(let ((last-nonmenu-event nil)(window-system "x"))(save-buffers-kill-emacs)))

and then:

emacsclient -e '(shutdown-emacs-server)'

If you use systemd you may be interested in this unit file that lets you manage an Emacs server gracefully from within your console/remote system:

[Unit]
Description=Emacs: the extensible, self-documenting text editor

[Service]
Type=forking
ExecStart=/usr/bin/emacs --daemon
ExecStop=/usr/bin/emacsclient --eval "(kill-emacs)"
Restart=always

# Remove the limit in startup timeout, since emacs
# cloning and building all packages can take time
TimeoutStartSec=0

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

(it kills the daemon in the same way folks already suggested above.)

You could put and name the unit file like ~/.config/systemd/user/emacs.service so it's bind to your user instead running it as root; to manage it:

$ systemctl --user {enable,disable,start,restart,stop} emacs.service

Please note: I took this note from somewhere else, can't remember where though.

I think that using a script in /etc/init.d is a cleaner solution. Check here for more details http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/EmacsAsDaemon

the answer from willert contains a small bug. it must look like

(defun shutdown-emacs-server () (interactive)
(when (not (eq window-system 'x))
(message "Initializing x windows system.")
(x-initialize-window-system)
(when (not x-display-name) (setq x-display-name (getenv "DISPLAY")))
(select-frame (make-frame-on-display x-display-name '((window-system . x))))
)
(let ((last-nonmenu-event nil)(window-system "x"))(save-buffers-kill-emacs)))

you can put emacsclient -e "(kill-emacs)" in GDM's PostSession directory or directly in the Default script:

/etc/gdm/PostSession/Default

see also GDM documentation.

Perhaps the most general solution would be to put a script in the system PostSession directory that runs every executable script in ~/.logout-d, or something similar. Then you can put whatever scripts you like in ~/.logout-d, and they will be run on logout.

The script might be as simple as run-parts ~/.logout.d.

Note: Untested, though I do use a startup script that does run-parts ~/.autostart.d, and that's been working fine forever.

Edit: Of course, it would be just as easy to modify the above python script to execute that same command, but I personally don't like the idea of loading a script for my entire session just to run commands on logout.

Just open some terminal and pkill -TERM emacs