Preventing Red Hat 9.0 from automatically logging out

phobos

As the title of the thread suggests, anyone know how on earth I can disable this auto logoff feature. Surely it's just a job in the background that's killing my user session. It's annoying, because I'm working with servers which I take up and down frequently (for testing purposes [java middleware]). If I have a server running and bugger off for coffee, the my session gets terminated, the server is killed, and anything else I happen to have running.

I know it's something small stupid, and simple (but can't seem to find it), so if one of ye Red Hat gurus could point me in the right direction, I would grately appreciate it

advTHANKSance

;-phobos-)

niallb

Hi Phobos,
you have an environment variable set called TMOUT.

It will be set in /etc/profile or /etc/profile.d/ somewhere.

You can put
export TMOUT=0[/]
in your ~/.bash_profile if you use bash.

If it tells you that TMOUT is a readonly variable,
look for a reference to typeset -r TMOUT[/]
in one of the profiles and disable it.

You should really try and write an init script to
take care of running and stopping your servers.
That way they'd be outside a shell anyway,
but it means you can start and stop them on a runlevel
basis and have them restart automaitically or via cron.

I can help you with the script if you haven't done it before.

NiallB

phobos

Thank's Niall for the reply, however I don't seem to have a TMOUT env variable. I did set | grep TMOUT in Bash, and nothing returned. I also checked in /etc/profile & /etc/profile.d/ somewhere, and nothing there either.

If I was to create this environment variable, in my ~/.bash_profile, would some process in the background make use of it?

Originally posted by niallb
You should really try and write an init script totake care of running and stopping your servers.
That way they'd be outside a shell anyway,
but it means you can start and stop them on a runlevel
basis and have them restart automaitically or via cron.
I can help you with the script if you haven't done it before.

Thanks very much for the offer, but I don't really need it. I am working as a software developer, and having the servers up on a long term basis is not required (ie, I'm not a commercial host). Basically I need control of them at the runlevel, to test my software, and allow other members of my team access to that software over the network to test theirs. Once we're done, I don't have a need for the servers anymore, just for the duration of development & testing.

Any suggestions?

;-phobos-)

niallb

Try setting the variable to 0 anyway, as it's a bash builtin
and requires no background process. However, it's unlikely
to override anything else logging you out.
Also see is there an autologout variable or similar.

I don't use redhat and they may be using something else.
A possibility is idled. It will be in either the profiles area or running as a daemon from init.d.
Try chkconfig --list | grep 5:\on (or 3:\on if at console boot) and see if anything mentions sleep :-)

How long does the timeout take?
Does it happen from an xterm or only from console?

A wrapper script should only take a few minutes to knock together and will give you a set of controls for the environment.

As an alternative try running the process within screen.
It should be on your CDs.
screen allows you connect and disconnect from a running terminal and might just get around the problem.
man screen is a start, but you can use it even to share a terminal with someone (screen -x) which might be useful.
When it's running type CTRL-A CTRL-D to detach, and I think it just might keep running. screen -D -RR will reconnect you.

On the point of not being a commercial host and having the servers up on a long term basis is not required, a longer term than a coffee break might be nice ;-)

Good luck,
NiallB