Solaris

Hi Guys

I am currently tring to setup a system to monitor (also for billing purpose) all the instruments in our facility (university reserch instrumentation facility). The OS's running on these computers include Windows, Redhat and Solaris (Solaris 9 in csh). I have managed to get login/off scripts done for Windows and Linux machines. But I failed to setup similar script for solaris. I am a winodws guy and not good at unix system especially Solaris. There is a "last" command in Solaris that can get login/off information but it does not fit our needs since we want to know instantly/remotely/automatically who is login/off of that machine and when.

Can anyone give me some advice how to do it? Thanks.
　
Here is what I did for Linux machines, which works well. I inserted following scripts to record the login/off information,

For login, insert /etc/gdm/PostLogin/Defaults with
l=login
filename = "/...../log.txt"
echo "$HOSTNAME $USERNAME $l $dat" > filename

For logout, insert /etc/gdm/PostSessionDefault with
l=logout
filename = "/...../log.txt"
echo "$HOSTNAME $USERNAME $l $dat" > filename

Queries:
1. In above code, if someone directly shut down system, it won't log in mentioned file, what is remedy for that?
2. Do your user login to solaris using CLI/GUI?
3. How did you achieve "instantly/remotely/automatically" in above code, you are putting entries into a file only? Same can be achieved by last command on both linux and solaris.

There are couple of solutions avaialble ranging from writing a shell script to use BSM audit.

Please answer above queries to assist you further.

Don't reinvent the wheel. Solaris has built-in accounting features.

The Blog of Ben Rockwood

Thanks for the help guys.

To achenle, in short, the accounting is a small part of this project. Also, the Solaris built in accounting system does not fit our needs.

To psshah,
1) The instrument controller computers do not shut down. Users only need to login to use the instrument and then logoff when they are done. Sometimes we have to shut down the computers but that is rare.

2) GUI

3) There are over 20 instruments in our facility. There is a program (written in vb.net) running on a windows computer in our main office which is monitoring the login/off activities of all the instruments (basically monitoring the log.txt made by the login/off script of that instrument). Whenever the program detects a user finishes the experiment and logoff the instrument, a few things will be done instantly. Two examples, 1) the usage information will be collected instantly. By adding other information (user name, research group, account #, time, cost, etc), a new entry will be added to a billing database which will be processed monthly. 2) The user's newly save data will be located and uploaded to a cloud storage (for data backup, or user can process data in his/her lab).

In fact this system has been running for a while, except the two Solaris instruments which I still don't know how to get login/off information instantly from our main office.

Thanks again for any advice.

On Solaris you first need to implement IP QoS so you can see how much traffic is made, then use accounting extended facility and to get login/logout and other information use Solaris audit options or syslogd deamon to get when someone loged in and then log out.

Then create small shell script which will extract information you need.

have a look under /etc/X11/gdm/PostLogin and /etc/X11/gdm/PostSession directories.

Thanks guys for the advise.

What tamitot suggested is just what I am looking for (very similar to what I did on linux machines). But I could not find /etc/X11/gdm directory on the Solaris computers. I am running Solaris 2.6 and Solaris 7. In fact, I have search whole directories for gdm or X11 and found none. Any advise? Thanks