Auto-logout?

[Eric Dunbar]

On Sat, 25 Dec 2004 06:15:32 -0800, Matt Zimmerman <mdz at canonical.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 24, 2004 at 11:25:02PM -0500, David M. Carney wrote:
> 
> > I'm running Warty.
> >
> > Is there a way in Gnome to have it automatically log me out after a
> > certain period of time with no keyboard or mouse activity?
> 
> I don't know of any preconfigured way to do this.  It sounds
> dangerous---what happens if you walk away from your desktop with an unsaved
> file open?

At the risk of sounding callous... that's your tough luck. In many
public access environments computers are set to auto-logout after a
specified time to keep people from hogging computers, intentionally or
inadvertently.

I could see many reasons and variations of ways to do this. e.g. to
prevent someone from hogging a computer when they're not supposed to
(15 min usage limit for e.g.) the computer would auto-logout after 15
mins, regardless of use; or, if it's after x mins of inactivity to
prevent a user's account (files, e-mail) from being exposed to too
much of a security risk by allowing it to sit unattended and
unprotected (with network drives mounted, e-mail app open, etc.). In
many public access situations password-protected screen savers are
inappropriate since that "locks" down the computer and prevents use by
others (you don't want to have to have someone with an admin password
on-hand in each computer lab in a uni simply to unlock computers and
allow people to use them).

Eric.