> I'm wondering if anybody uses the TMOUT environment variable to time out
> shell users? I have a z/OS background and am used to my interactive
> TSO session timing out after about 15 minutes of non use. Do UNIX people
> even care about this? Or do you use some sort of cron to force idle
> shell users off the system. If you don't force off idle shell users,
> what about people who just up and leave at the end of the day without
> logging off?
Most of us are not command line based any more but using local or remote
GUI tools. There are apps for booting idle people off.
TMOUT isn't great because a user in an app won't get zapped.
If you are using ssh for your sessions then in sshd_config set
ClientAliveInterval 600
ClientAliveCountMax 0
and restart sshd and your world will be happier.
Users can still subvert it by leaving a session that is producing output
every few minutes (eg a background while (1) { sleep(500): printf(" ");)
but at that point it's moving from dealing with the forgetful to managing
problems in your userbase, which is a whole different game.
BTW if you get users who get upset about being booted off when they leave
their sessions idle, introduce them to screen ..
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