Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!rutgers!ucsd!sdcsvax!ucsdhub!esosun!seismo!uunet!ispi!jbayer From: jbayer@ispi.UUCP (Jonathan Bayer) Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards Subject: Re: Autologout of unused terminals Summary: automatic idle-killer software is useful Message-ID: <310@ispi.UUCP> Date: 3 Dec 88 15:27:13 GMT References: <201.nlunix6@orcenl.uucp> <8978@smoke.BRL.MIL> <2682@sultra.UUCP> <9012@smoke.BRL.MIL> Organization: Intelligent Software Products, Inc. Lines: 21 In article <9012@smoke.BRL.MIL>, gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn ) writes: > In article <2682@sultra.UUCP> dtynan@sultra.UUCP (Der Tynan) writes: > > Because any automated scheme you come up is likely to ALSO kill off > some perfectly legitimate jobs. > > I have, nearly every day, important connections between a "terminal" > and a host computer that appear to have no activity on them for a > long time, sometimes hours. However, the connections are needed and > cannot be opened only at the time they are active; they must be > arranged in advance then just sit there. An automatic "kill idle > terminal" daemon would wreak havoc with this. Not if you can specify configuration information to the idle-killer via a config. file. We have such a product which will ignore specific users (let them stay on forever), ttys , etc. It is actually fairly easy to write. Jonathan Bayer Intelligent Software Products, Inc.