Autologout of unused terminals

[Doug Gwyn]

In article <2018 at nunki.usc.edu> connet at castor.usc.edu (David Connet) writes:
>Another way, if you are using ksh, is to set the TMOUT variable.
>After TMOUT seconds, a message is sent saying to the effect 'if you don't
>do something in 60 seconds, I'm killing you...'

I don't know why Korn chose TMOUT when TIMEOUT was the prior art for this.
The BRL Bourne shell also can optionally be configured with TIMEOUT
support.  The correct description is:

If a PS1 prompt is not responded to within the TIMEOUT period, the shell
exits.  Setting TIMEOUT to 0 disables this feature.

Note that Blit/DMD/MTG (5620/630 etc.) users have to disable TIMEOUT
since some of their layer windows may not receive any input for quite
some time, especially if a downloaded process is in control of the
layer.  At least with the TIMEOUT approach there IS a way to disable
the auto-timeout when necessary.  Most suggested approaches are just
not usable in any but the most mickey-mouse environments.