Logging out other users

rozilla · 07-14-2008, 11:35 AM

At our computer lab I often find that some users have locked the screen. Others are still able to log in by clicking 'Switch User'. However, the previous user still stays logged into his/her session. How can I as an admin log these users out, when they lock their screen and stay away for hours? Any ideas?

colucix · 07-14-2008, 11:38 AM

Kill their desktop manager session.

DragonM15 · 07-14-2008, 11:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by colucix

Kill their desktop manager session.

That is what I would do. furthermore you could also kill any other applications that are being ran by that user. I find that if I kill my own desktop manager, some of those programs that were running while I had my X session running REMAIN running, and I cannot open that application again until I kill the process manually. Just some thoughts.

DragonM15

colucix · 07-14-2008, 12:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DragonM15

some of those programs that were running while I had my X session running REMAIN running

Another method to completely kill a user (I mean... not physically...) can be

Code:

skill KILL -u username

this will send a KILL signal to all the processes belonging to the user. See man skill for details.

0.o · 07-14-2008, 12:01 PM

pkill -u <user>

trickykid · 07-14-2008, 12:52 PM

TMOUT=<seconds>

Place this in /etc/profile for system wide defaults. It will logout those inactive for the time in seconds you specify. 10 minutes or so is probably a good setting with a lot of traffic on public terminals/machines, etc.

rozilla · 07-14-2008, 02:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 0.o

pkill -u <user>

that did it! thank u.

thanks everybody for all this helpful info! :-)

DragonM15 · 08-08-2008, 12:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 0.o

pkill -u <user>

Thank you for refreshing my memory, I knew there was a simple way to kill all processes from a certain user, skill appears to work great as well, I have just used pkill before.

DragonM15

trickykid · 08-08-2008, 02:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rozilla

that did it! thank u.

thanks everybody for all this helpful info! :-)

You should still implement the TMOUT so you don't find yourself going around killing user processes all the time.