Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!umd5!brl-adm!brl-smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn )
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Timeout in SVR3
Message-ID: <7824@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Date: 3 May 88 14:24:08 GMT
References: <2586@mibte.UUCP>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn>)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 18
Keywords: timeout SVR3

In article <2586@mibte.UUCP> twh@mibte.UUCP (Tim Hitchcock) writes:
>Is there a facility for "timing out" a user process when there is no activity ?
>Is there a SHELL Variable that can be set to cause logging off of a user
>if they are not using their terminal ?

I don't think the TIMEOUT variable is enabled in the SVR3 shell as
distributed, but this is easy to add if you have the source code.

In general you should beware automatic timeout schemes; they cause
problems because there is no sure-fire indicator when automatic
termination would be safe.  I frequently have several "idle" processes
running that must NOT be terminated (hint: I use "layers").  If what
you want to do is to force termination on OTHER people, be advised
that eventually they will find ways around your automatic scheme, so
all you end up doing is complicating the system and wasting everyone's
time.

Consider (human) administrative methods of dealing with whatever the
real problem is first.