Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!DGOGWDG5.BITNET!U0012
From: U0012@DGOGWDG5.BITNET ("GWDGV1::MOELLER")
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: idle job killing
Message-ID: <8808021936.AA09423@ucbvax.berkeley.edu>
Date: 27 Jul 88 08:13:00 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 16

Many people have described various ways to find out how long
a terminal or process has been idle. What I never saw mentioned
was the PCB$L_WAITIME longword, which records the time a process
has given up the CPU for the last time. I find that information
much easier to use than obscure device-dependent TTDRIVER timestamps.

Everything has its drawbacks, of course:
while terminal-related timers will be updated by BROADCASTS (I guess),
PCB$L_WAITIME is updated by special kernel ASTs, typically generated by
the curious system manager doing $GETJPI to obtain the name of the current
image (note that neither MONITOR nor SHOW SYSTEM use it!).

Anyway, it is a neat conservative estimate; I use it routinely
to manually kill really obsolete processes.

Wolfgang J. Moeller, GWDG, D-3400 Goettingen, F.R.Germany | Disclaimer ...
Bitnet/Earn: U0012@DGOGWDG5         Phone: +49 551 201516 | No claim intended