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From: brnstnd@stealth.acf.nyu.edu
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Idle terminal logout daemons.
Message-ID: <14439:May2509:03:5190@stealth.acf.nyu.edu>
Date: 25 May 90 09:03:51 GMT
References: <265A888F.28EE@marob.masa.com>
Reply-To: brnstnd@stealth.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein)
Distribution: usa
Organization: IR
Lines: 26

In article <265A888F.28EE@marob.masa.com> daveh@marob.masa.com (Dave Hammond) writes:
> I am trying to implement an idle terminal logout mechanism for users who
> login to publically accessable terminals and leave an open shell prompt
> for hours at a time.
  [ untamo logs users out whether they're at the shell or at an editor ]

What's the difference? The point of an idle daemon is to keep users from
leaving terminals unattended for too long. Why should it matter whether
a tty is unattended in a shell or in an editor?

There is an excellent solution to all these problems: namely, to provide
a detach-attach mechanism (through, e.g., ptys), and to simply detach
users after too much idle time. This has the advantage that the user can
reconnect later, whether he was at a shell prompt or inside a program,
wihtout any hassle. Naturally, it obsoletes idle daemons that do a
``lock'' on the terminal, since to reattach the user has to log in
somewhere else anyway; and the user isn't stuck if he can't get back to
the original terminal.

> I am also aware that ksh has the TMOUT variable, but we have only the
> stock sh and csh shells here, and management is not interested in
> purchasing ksh for all involved systems.

See if autologout in csh will help.

---Dan