To prevent wall messages from messing up all of your open terminals: sudo systemctl stop systemd-ask-password-wall.service sudo systemctl stop systemd-ask-password-wall.path To make this change persistent over boot: sudo systemctl mask systemd-ask-password-wall.service sudo systemctl mask systemd-ask-password-wall.path Ref: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/382272/systemd-ask-password-only-prompt-on-current-console