Bash inactivity execute script
 

Hi!

Recently while tuning my bash and whatnot I thought about a nice (but quite unnecessary) little feature to add.

Basically, it's a screensaver for bash, so after a certain time of inactivity (eg. 2 minutes) on a bash it will automatically run a program on this bash which then shows some kind of ascii screensaver or what (eg. bb for AA, looks nice) and when I CTRL+C the screensaver I'd have to login again (unlock my session). The screensaver and the locking works quite well so far, the only missing part is the 2 minute timeout.

Is there any way to execute a script on a bash after a certain time of inactivity?

Thanks in advance,
Gachl

You might want to look into GNU Screen. Screen locking is just the tip of iceberg as far as it's customisation is concerned.

redgoblin,

I think you might have misunderstood my problem, I'm not looking for a way to lock a session, I need to run a command after a time of inactivity on a bash. As I already started, the locking part works already.

Thanks,
Gachl

Gachl

GNU Screen jumped to mind as it's locking can be set to happen after a certain amount of idle time. However it's an all in one solution and wouldn't necessarily fit in with what you have already.

There's a BASH environment variable called TMOUT. But all that can do is log you out after the set idle time.

Otherwise, looking around for a possible answer I came across this LQ thread (see third post) which might help. If not then I'm out of ideas but you can at least consider this post a friendly *bump* for your question.

Good luck.

For the moment this solution is working nice, thanks for the link!

If anyone else has other suggestions please do share.

Adding a note to an old thread in case this is of use to anybody else:

This post at crunchbang http://crunchbang.org/forums/viewtopic.php?id=26447 details a bash script to determine the time in seconds since the last mouse or keyboard action in the system. It doesn't depend on any X session or user being logged in since it's just looking at hardware interrupts. You could modify the scrip to invoke the screensaver & lock rather than suspending the system.

So for keyword searches: bash script for user idle / inactive time