Hi all ^_^
Okay, here's the problem:

There's an IBM RS6000 server running AIX 4.3 with Informix database in my workplace. During peak hours, it has about 350 users doing mostly database operations. It has been set up that those users can only log-in the system at one terminal at a time. Due to many reasons (improper disconnection from the system, disrupted connection, etc), some users' processes are hung in the system, eating up system resources, even though they got disconnected. Those processes are the ones without a TTY when examining the output of the command "ps aux"

Thus, our system operators receive a lot of user requests to kill their processes. A shell script is used to kill all processes without a tty(terminal name) belonging to a specified user. Apparantly,
our operators are sick of getting calls to kill those dead processes.

I want to know if there's a way to prevent this problem from happening at all (or decrease the frequency of this problem)

First and foremost, you should find out why
users are expierencing "improper disconnection
from the system, disrupted connection, etc".

What are the programs that they are running?
Are they in-house developed apps.?
Are they standard COTS?
Are they customized COTS?

The fact that adminstrators are observing
a rise in this problem, this should be brought
to managment's attention, the problem analyzed
and a solution implemented. The fact that a
script is currently in place is a good but
TEMPORARY measure however, to do as you ask
and prevent this from happening, you need to
get to the actual problem; and to do that, you
need to ask many questions like the ones above
and correct the "real" problem.

Start raising some hell

Hi rwb1959 ,

Thanks for your reply. I'd appreciate it! ^____^

What do u mean by COTS? Sorry, I am not sure what it stands for.

I've talked to the database administrator who are in charged of the both the Unix and Informix servers. He told me that the "improper disconnections" are mainly caused by closing NetTerms (telnet program used to connect to server) directly without "logoff"

Can we somehow increase the "awareness" of the system to those users who are disconnected?

My apologies for the use of term without
defining it first. COTS - Commercial Off The
Shelf software.

On the disconnects, it would be better
to educate your users to "exit" rather than just
disconnect however, what I was really looking
for was... while they are logged on via
NetTeam, what software do the run on UNIX.
Normally, when a user disconnects, a hangup
signal is sent to all processes associated with
that "controlling terminal". Properly written
sofware should handle this and clean up the
session. If the sofware was developed in-house,
you should file a bug report to your development
folks. If it is Commercial (COTS) sofware,
complain to the sofware manufacturer.