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From: allebrandi@inland.com (Tom Allebrandi)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms,comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: How to disable Decwindows Pause Session?
Message-ID: <770.27fae48a@inland.com>
Date: 4 Apr 91 08:32:10 GMT
References: <13044.27f8a2ca@ecs.umass.edu>
Organization: Inland Steel Research Labs; East Chicago, IN
Lines: 46

In article <13044.27f8a2ca@ecs.umass.edu>, jhwelch@ecs.umass.edu writes:
> We're about to allow students access to some VAXstations running
> Decwindows.  I'd like to disable the Pause Session feature in
> the session manager so that someone can't lock up a workstation
> and walk off, rendering it useless to anyone else.  A call to the
> DEC telephone support folks told me that this would be an option
> in the next release of Decwindows, not due out until after this
> summer.
> 
>...
> Any workable suggestions are welcome - I'm sure other sites would
> like to be able to do something like this, too.  


The way we have solved this problem here is with a homebrew application
called SESSION_LOCK. SESSION_LOCK does basically the same thing as
"Pause Session", the difference is that it uses a list of usernames and
will accept the password to any of them. A file in SYS$MANAGER: 
controls the list of usernames that are accepted.

For example, when I run SESSION_LOCK to "lock" my workstation, it
accepts the password to my username, SYSTEM, or our operator account.
This allows either myself or anyone on our system support staff to
"unlock" my workstation.

The current downside of SESSION_LOCK is that it is an application so it
needs to go on your application menu. I haven't dug in deep enough yet
to figure out how to hook it to the "Pause" item on the "Session"
pulldown. (If that is even possible. It may be better to just get rid
of the "Pause" item.)

This means that people can still use "Pause". Here, we only have eight
workstations, seven of which are on peoples desks. It was easy for us
to simply tell everyone to use SESSION_LOCK, your milage may differ.

I've been intending to post SESSION_LOCK, I just haven't gotten around
to it. Send me mail if you want a copy. It works on both VMS and Ultrix.
The VMS version supports both the old HPWD and the new SYS$hash_password()
methods of password hashing.

--- Tom
Tom Allebrandi             | Mail guru   - DECUS UUCP Development Team
Inland Steel Research Labs | Chairperson - VMSnet Working Group, DECUS VAX SIG
East Chicago, IN           | Internet:  allebrandi@inland.com
219 399 6306               | UUCP:      ...!uunet!inland!allebrandi
                           | DECUServe: allebrandi     BIX: ta2