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migee 01-05-2011 09:06 AM
Understanding Idle/Inactive sessions and whether or not someone is logged in
 
Hi Everyone,

I'm trying to understand if anyone is left on a server. Basically I manage a simple linux server remotely used by 3-4 individuals. I can never tell if someone is actually on or not using w/who.

What I'm seeing is some people having what appears to be inactive/lost VNC sessions. I don't understand idle fully, but I do believe a program (without user interaction) can clear idle back to 0, correct?

Anyway, I'm asking because every now and then I need to reboot the server, and I do not want to interrupt any program working on calculations or waiting on having the data saved.

Here's what I see in w:

Code:
me@matrix:~> w
 06:59:54 up 170 days,  9:13, 16 users,  load average: 0.52, 0.16, 0.06
USER    TTY        LOGIN@  IDLE  JCPU  PCPU WHAT
me :2/matri  06:59  ?xdm?  7days  0.10s /bin/sh /usr/X11R6/bin/kde
user1 pts/0    21Dec10 15days  0.00s  1.44s kded [kdeinit]
user3  pts/1    29Oct10 10:42m  0.31s  0.20s ssh -Y aaa@bbb.cccccc.ca
user2  pts/2    27Nov10 39days  0.00s 24.94s kded [kdeinit]
user3  pts/4    20Jul10 169days  0.00s  1:36  kded [kdeinit]
user1 :0        21Dec10 ?xdm?  7days  0.09s /bin/sh /usr/X11R6/bin/kde
user2  matrix.w  27Nov10  0.00s  0.00s  0.06s /bin/sh /usr/X11R6/bin/kde
me pts/5    06:59    0.00s  0.08s  0.01s w
me matrix.w  06:59    0.00s  0.00s  0.10s /bin/sh /usr/X11R6/bin/kde
user3  pts/12    14Dec10 10:30m  0.10s  0.01s ssh ccc.aaa.ca -l rpd2
me pts/3    06:59  46.00s  0.00s  1.36s kded [kdeinit]
me@matrix:~>
Where can I go from here? How can I tell what users I can log off? How can I tell that there has been no user interaction for a week for example?

honeybadger 01-05-2011 01:14 PM
There is a 'wall' command that can be run as a root and the message you type can be delivered to all terminals.
As far as running processes is concerned I ahve found 'ps' most useful. If you know the username of the people you think have logged in then 'ps -u'. You can also look at the passwd file and look at the uid and gid and look it up on ps. Try 'man ps' for more info.
Hope this helps.


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