OK, so here is the deal. The system is locked and I am away. I run Mint 16 64 bit on a core 2 duo E8400 (3.0ghz) with 8gb ram and 2 x 3tb hard drives (no raid).

I lock the system each time I leave it. Twice I have had a younger family member work at my office desk while I am gone...only twice. Both of those times, all my virtualbox machines have closed, my NX version 3 client has closed, my gedit and my firefox browsers have all closed. Yet my system has not rebooted and he definetly does not have my password.

I use team viewer and it's super buggy, but I am able to remote in to see what is going on. It's a locked screen both times. So I type in my password to unlock and the kid starts opening web browsers and text editors...almost instantly. Like he was waiting for it.

How the heck is he closing those programs but not unlocking my system???

He has almost zero computer knowledget other than basic internet browsing skills and working in ms word.

I have checked the logs and at almost the same time I saw this:

VirtualBox[4949]: segfault at a ip 00007fc2b338dbfa sp 00007fff71149a50 error 4 in libc-2.17.so[7fc2b330e000+1bd000]
Apr 14 15:18:06 mint16 kernel: [524707.521790] VBoxDrvLinuxIOCtl: copy_to_user(0x7fc255d4fd30,,0x18); uCmd=0xc0305698!
Apr 14 15:18:07 mint16 kernel: [524709.133952] VBoxDrvLinuxIOCtl: copy_to_user(0x7f1220518d30,,0x18); uCmd=0xc0305698!
Apr 14 15:18:10 mint16 kernel: [524711.435947] VBoxDrvLinuxIOCtl: copy_to_user(0x7f650cbbfd30,,0x18); uCmd=0xc0305698!
Apr 14 15:18:10 mint16 kernel: [524711.435964] VBoxDrvLinuxIOCtl: copy_to_user(0x7f650cd41d30,,0x18); uCmd=0xc0305698!
Apr 14 15:18:10 mint16 kernel: [524711.448825] VBoxDrvLinuxIOCtl: copy_to_user(0x7f532eca6d30,,0x18); uCmd=0xc0305698!


It's just too much of a coincidence for this to happen at the same time he has been there. He's only been there 2 times and it's happened both times. He said he didn't touch the computer until he saw it come on all by itself (my unlocking it).

What could this be?

Well if you're going to remote into it and not be there, then why leave it hooked up to a monitor and keyboard? Because you can also remote into it when you are there, correct?

I can't say what the exact problem is, but I had a kid who was punished and not allowed to use the internet, TV, etc and they near killed their self to fight in any possible way to get on the internet and play games. So when I locked out the wireless network as much as I could, they learned how to re-initialize the router to factory defaults! I ended up moving the wireless router to a locked location; having never needed a locked location anywhere in my house before. Talk about obnoxious. All the while thinking that if they put that much effort into their schoolwork, they wouldn't have been punished in the first place.

The fishy part here is where you say:They're not supposed to touch it at all is the point.

Another point is what setup do you have where your main console unlocks when you remote into the machine? I'm not a big virtual machine person, and in fact don't do anything like what you're doing, I carry my laptop with me. But if I have to get to a remote system, I do the tired old ssh, and memory serves that this doesn't "wake up" the screen, or unlock the system at all, it merely adds a process.

So I don't normally remote into my linux mint desktop, but I do have teamviewer running on it as it gives me my actual desktop and not a virtual desktop like NX does. I run a few vm's on my computer for email and a few other things.

When my email went down, I decided to log into my computer from home. That's when I saw that my nx session into a remote server was closed, as were all my vm's, as was my web browser, as was gedit. Almost the moment i logged into the office desktop, the keyboard and mouse started opening firefox and typing web sites.

The fact that teamviewer unlocks the actual desktop (I know it's a security no no) is not as important as finding out how he closed the programs in the first place.

Ok I figured it out.

This is a Linux Mint bug!!!

Anyone can click switch user on linux mint and that actually closes all the programs for the logged in user. Effectively it logs out the user, even if they don't type in any passwords. They just click switch user and instantly all your programs close.

WOW

I may have to switch to something other than linux mint if it's this easy to close out all programs for a logged in user from a locked workstation.