Logging out idle users after a certain timeframe Post: 302426406

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Operating Systems Solaris Logging out idle users after a certain timeframe Post 302426406 by curleb on Tuesday 1st of June 2010 10:09:50 PM

06-01-2010

Registered User

Well, the nuclear option that you're suggesting for yourself would be for a root or superuser to kill any jobs associated with non-Admin and higher GIDs...every 3 hours. For this to work, you'd need to identify the PIDs associated with these GIDs and work backwards from there. Gritty...and dangerous.

For example, what if little Cindy Lou Who signs on and is working on a time-critical item...only to be killed based on your cron job? The loss in her time alone might be sufficient to raise alarms, if it doesn't corrupt data as a result as well. Tack on the likelihood that it happens after-hours, after she's just signed in at 1135pm, on New Year's Eve while she's been ordered to do so from the corner office...and it spirals from there.

TMOUT, on the other hand, will serve to neutralize lingering sessions where the User has been idle (ie, not actually working) for a specified amount of time. Their own passivity serves the purpose to allow the system to sign them off; sort of like banking websites. It's a rolling window that resets according to their login time and their activity. Imagine if banks took the aggressive approach and nixed your session while you were still setting up a transfer to your offshore account? (All those fractions of cents add up, you know...)

I'd strongly suggest that you at least apply the TMOUT option first and see if would suit the audit requirement. Something that works, as opposed to a whiz-bang script written from the ground up, might just suit the requirement perfectly...with zero effort.

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LEARN ABOUT REDHAT

who

WHO(1)									FSF								    WHO(1)

NAME

       who - show who is logged on

SYNOPSIS

       who [OPTION]... [ FILE | ARG1 ARG2 ]

DESCRIPTION

       -a, --all
	      same as -b -d --login -p -r -t -T -u

       -b, --boot
	      time of last system boot

       -d, --dead
	      print dead processes

       -H, --heading
	      print line of column headings

       -i, --idle
	      add idle time as HOURS:MINUTES, . or old (deprecated, use -u)

       --login
	      print system login processes (equivalent to SUS -l)

       -l, --lookup
	      attempt to canonicalize hostnames via DNS (-l is deprecated, use --lookup)

       -m     only hostname and user associated with stdin

       -p, --process
	      print active processes spawned by init

       -q, --count
	      all login names and number of users logged on

       -r, --runlevel
	      print current runlevel

       -s, --short
	      print only name, line, and time (default)

       -t, --time
	      print last system clock change

       -T, -w, --mesg
	      add user's message status as +, - or ?

       -u, --users
	      list users logged in

       --message
	      same as -T

       --writable
	      same as -T

       --help display this help and exit

       --version
	      output version information and exit

       If  FILE is not specified, use /var/run/utmp.  /var/log/wtmp as FILE is common.	If ARG1 ARG2 given, -m presumed: `am i' or `mom likes' are
       usual.

AUTHOR

       Written by Joseph Arceneaux, David MacKenzie, and Michael Stone.

REPORTING BUGS

       Report bugs to <bug-coreutils@gnu.org>.

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright (C) 2002 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
       This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.  There is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICU-
       LAR PURPOSE.

SEE ALSO

       The  full  documentation  for who is maintained as a Texinfo manual.  If the info and who programs are properly installed at your site, the
       command

	      info who

       should give you access to the complete manual.

who (coreutils) 4.5.3						   February 2003							    WHO(1)