Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uflorida!ukma!husc6!rutgers!att!chinet!les
From: les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Need a timeout device SVR3.x
Message-ID: <8429@chinet.chi.il.us>
Date: 10 May 89 21:57:28 GMT
References: <170@attibr.UUCP> <10226@smoke.BRL.MIL>
Reply-To: les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell)
Organization: Chinet - Public Access Unix
Lines: 25

In article <10226@smoke.BRL.MIL> gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn) writes:
>In article <170@attibr.UUCP> rjd@attibr.UUCP (Robert J. Diamond x7650) writes:
>>We have a problem.  We need to time out inactive users on our 3b2's,
>>...  Any ideas/solutions?
>
>I suggest you reconsider.  Why is it so important that users press
>a key every so often?  Surely there must be applications where that
>would be a silly requirement.
>
>What is your real requirement?  A "need to time out users" is not
>an end in itself.

How about this situation:
The ports are dial-up, and mostly inbound wats lines, the users are
calling in to pick up frequently updated files.  There are >1000
login id's and about 8 inbound lines.
My solution was to use a login shell that just accepts their requests
and hands out the files unless they ask for a menu of other choices.
A separate process is forked off which periodically stat's the tty
line checking for a maximum idle time and total on-line time mentioned
in the comment field of their passwd file entry.  They mostly don't have
permission to write files or a home directory, either.  If either time
expires, the other process forces the line to drop.

Les Mikesell