Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!CIVILGATE.CE.UIUC.EDU!lray
From: lray@CIVILGATE.CE.UIUC.EDU (Ray)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo
Subject: (none)
Message-ID: <8910201743.AA00893@civilgate.ce.uiuc.edu>
Date: 20 Oct 89 17:43:05 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 48

I need a supported way to log out a user from either a program
or a shell script.

The reason why I need this is I wish to prevent DM login by a user
if the home directory does not exist.

At SR9, I forced a shell script for all DM logins that simply
did:

if not existf ^HOME then
   # code to display messageand wait goes here
   xdmc lo
end if


At SR10.0 and SR10.1, I changed the way startups worked to provide
maximum flexibility. A server now starts at login time, and looks for
the home directory. If it doesn't exist, I create a window on the
screen with a "Sorry, files are unavailable at this time" message.
I then do a pad_$dm_command to effect a logout.


However, using pad_$dm_command from a program to log someone out is
precarious at best. It only works on some machine types at SR10.1, and
at SR10.2 it will probably fail regularly.

It fails in several ways. Most commonly, it says "unable to stop all
processes, want to blast them?" If the logout program is run
using /etc/server, the result is very strange. The window the program
creates (and hence the program itself) will never cease except by
shutting down the DM (it cannot be signaled because it is in
pad_$dm_command).

I believe the latter is caused by pad_$dm_command waiting for the
operation to complete, and hanging. Perhaps it is remembering a
parent/child relationship with the user (although started with a
cps). Parhaps it is something else.

QUESTION: How can I force a user logged into the console off the
system? How can I get something that will work regardless of the
windowing system the user elects? I'm willing to do any programming
necessary to accomplish this.


Just spendin' my days,                  Leland Ray
                                        Systems Administrator
  Soakin' in them cathode rays.         UIUC - Dept. Civil Engineering
                                        (217) 333-3821