on 13:11 Fri 21 Jan, Michael Gliwinski (Michael.Gliwinski@henderson-group.com) wrote:
On Thursday 20 Jan 2011 22:26:08 Bob Eastbrook wrote:
On Wed, Jan 19, 2011 at 12:18 PM, m.roth@5-cent.us wrote:
But the locked screensaver wants the *same* password that you log in with. I'm having trouble understanding the problem... or is it that many of the users *never* log out?
Yes, users will sign onto a workstation, and then disappear somewhere in the building. They usually forget that they're logged on, which means the workstation is unusable by anyone else for several days.
Restarting the X server is one solution, but it will kill any running jobs.
I'm not sure about GNOME or if that's available in version currently shipped in CentOS but in KDE the screensaver allows you to switch user, i.e. leave the currently logged on user's session running and start a new one for another user. That seems like a better solution if possible, no?
Or, so long as your graphics card doesn't kill console access, go old school:
- Switch to console. - Log into console. - Launch X.
The problem here is the hanging console session, which you should kill.
Better: Institute a policy that abandoned desktop sessions are fair game to be killed. As with hot stoves and children, the lesson would be learned after a few experiences.
Systems work should be handled remotely via ssh (or VNC), within screen session, or via cronjobs.
Another useful feature would be to have an auto-logoff set after a certain amount of inactivity. This doesn't seem to be available within GNOME, so you'd probably have to homebrew it.