Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!rutgers!cmcl2!nrl-cmf!ukma!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cwjcc!mailrus!uwmcsd1!marque!uunet!mcvax!hp4nl!orcenl!bengsig
From: bengsig@orcenl.uucp (Bjorn Engsig)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Autologout of unused terminals
Message-ID: <214.nlunix6@orcenl.uucp>
Date: 2 Dec 88 08:45:07 GMT
References: <17667@adm.BRL.MIL>
Organization: ORACLE Europe, The Netherlands
Lines: 23

(I was the person originally requesting the autologout)

In article <17667@adm.BRL.MIL>, gwyn@BRL.MIL (VLD/VMB) writes:
> [ ... ]  A small reward would be quietly given to
> the snitch and administrative action (perhaps a fine) would be
> taken against the offender.
That might work in your organization, but it would do no good here!
> 
> Then the TMOUT (or TIMEOUT) feature has already been mentioned; it
> provides a much better controlled way to terminate forgotten
> terminal connections, and has the important feature that IT CAN BE
> DISABLED by the user who knows that it would cause him problems.
Correct, and wrong:  Timeout needs to be implemented in whatever "shell"
all users could possibly be using.  In our environment this could be
a real shell (sh, csh, etc.) or it could be a menuing system, another
command interpreter, or something else.  And if you want to disable autologout,
a signal(SIGHUP,...) or nohup would do perfectly well.


-- 
Bjorn Engsig, ORACLE Europe      \ /    "Hofstaedter's Law:  It always takes
 ..!uunet!mcvax!orcenl!bengsig    X      longer than you expect, even if you
phone:  +31 21 59 56 411         / \     take into account Hofstaedter's Law"