Autologout of unused terminals

[Jonathan Bayer]

In article <8978 at smoke.BRL.MIL>, gwyn at smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn ) writes:
> In article <201.nlunix6 at orcenl.uucp> bengsig at orcenl.uucp (Bjorn Engsig) writes:
> >Is there any way to see if a terminal has not been used for some time,
> >and if it hasn't, to send a hangup to the processes there?
> 
> Try that around here and you may get stomped on!
> 
> Just why this is a BAD idea has been spelled out many times before
> and need not be repeated.


There are several scenerios in which you would want to kill an idle terminal.

One is in a university/college environment which has somewhat limited resources.
You would want to kill certain terminals which have been idle, while leaving
others alive (leave the console alone, kill the students terminals after a
certain time period).

Another is in a commercial environment which has terminals in an open environment.
A terminal which is idle with no one there is open to anybody sitting down and
either changing the password, setting a trap, or some other deviltry.

One of our products is called the Idle Killer, which does the above, and much
more.  For more info contact me via e-mail.


Jonathan Bayer
Intelligent Software Products, Inc.