As Ben says I don't think you can guarantee that the user cleanly logs out. This is similar to the problem that ISPs have in legitimately billing customers. They have to have some external means of determining that the session is over ( they hope that they get a RADIUS Stop indication, but they will also look at IP accounting packets etc)
What you probably need to write is a small windows daemon process that is launced at login and is admin controllable only. It would send back to a billing server a small msg every say 5 minutes that user X is logged in and using the machine. Your billing system should then assume if it doesn't hear from the daemon that the user is logged off (or the machine has crashed). The daemon might also want to prompt the user every 1 hour with how much he/she is being billed. Of course if the billing server doesn't hear from the daemon it is going to want to force the user off as well to limit free usage. I also have seen something like this implemented as a web browser window that has to be kept open. It either user HTTP-Refresh or Javascript to poll the billing/account server. This might be useful if you are allowing your customers to use their own laptop in the business centre. (And you don't have admin priveleges on their machine) Martin Visser ,CISSP Network and Security Consultant Technology & Infrastructure - Consulting & Integration HP Services 3 Richardson Place North Ryde, Sydney NSW 2113, Australia Phone *: +61-2-9022-1670 Mobile *: +61-411-254-513 Fax 7: +61-2-9022-1800 E-mail * : martin.visserAThp.com -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of DE LUCA Ben Sent: Thursday, 4 December 2003 6:35 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [SLUG] Samba PDC & logout scripts When windows crashes :) you aint going be able to bill them. What might be better is a script that touches base with some thing remote. > From: "Edwin Humphries" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Date: Thu, 04 Dec 2003 15:39:35 +1100 > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: [SLUG] Samba PDC & logout scripts > > We're thinking of setting up a hotel business centre using samba as a > PDC to dynamically create user accounts, allow/disallow user access > and time usage, using samba login and logout prompts. Sounds really > simple and elegant, but when a user logs out of the windows machine, > will samba always execute the required logout script? How reliable is > this? (It has to be, as we're envisaging it as the basis for billing). > > Edwin Humphries, > Ironstone Technology Pty Ltd > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > www.ironstone.com.au > Phone: 02 4233 2285 > Fax: 02 4233 2299 > Mobile: 0419 233 051 > -- > SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group - http://slug.org.au/ More Info: > http://lists.slug.org.au/listinfo/slug > -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group - http://slug.org.au/ More Info: http://lists.slug.org.au/listinfo/slug -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group - http://slug.org.au/ More Info: http://lists.slug.org.au/listinfo/slug
