User connections not dropping

[wizzer]

Hello again all!

I've now got my shiney new Openserver 6 system up and running and my users are logging into it using telnet connections. The problem now is that when then disconnect their telnet session by closing the program down instead of logging out, my system isn't recognising that they've gone and keeps their programs etc running. I'm not sure what setting i'm missing that i had on my old Openserver 5 system but if anyone could give me a clue what to look at i'd be grateful!

Regards
James

 

[KenCunningham]

Maybe take a look at idleout

All I ask of you
Is make my wildest dreams come true

 

[wizzer]

Thanks, but that wasn't what was used on the old system. The users that are affected are using the standard /bin/sh shell, but i use the c-shell and when i disconnect the computer recognises that i've gone. I'm guessing that there is some setting for the shell that i've not set?

 

[wizzer]

Ok this is now driving me mad! I'm having to spend 50% of my time killing off processes left by people who didn't log off correctly. There must be an option or something that i've not set that does this!
I only have 32 users but the tty ports in use have gone up to 200 because when people disconnect the shell's not stopping and continues to hog the port.

Someone PLEASE HELP!!!

 

[motoslide]

We have an application which does the same thing, and our solution is to run a CRON-based process which is able to identify and kill the "Lost processes". In our case, the process has some characteristic which is easily identified in the "ps -ef" output. The CRON-based cleanup routine launches every 5 or 10 minutes, kills things off as needed, and nobody even knows its active.

I know this isn't a clean solution to your problem, but maybe you had something similar running on the old system and didn't know about it??

"Proof that there is intelligent life in Oregon. Well, Life anyway.

 

[wizzer]

I have a script that i have previously run overnight which kills of any leftover processes like this so i'm tailoring that at the moment and as you suggest i'll run it every 10 minutes. I'm going to see if the same problem occurs on our backup server later today. It's just very frustrating that there's this little loose-end, the users of the system are ecstatic with the performance of the new system, we have a series of reports which run overnight from midnight and on our old server they took around 5 hours to run, and on the new server they take 11 minutes! It's fantastic!

Thanks as always for replies and advice!
James

 

[KenCunningham]

James, because idleout wasn't used on the old system doesn't necessarily mean you shouldn't use it on the new one does it?

Anyway, whatever your solution, good luck and pleased that your system seems to be flying!

All I ask of you
Is make my wildest dreams come true

 

[PHV]

Have a look at keepalive in the man telnetd pages.

Hope This Helps, PH.
Want to get great answers to your Tek-Tips questions? Have a look at FAQ219-2884 or FAQ181-2886

 

[wizzer]

No you're right Ken, idleout is something i've not really used before, i had another script in place which killed off idle users after an hour anyway, i think i'll ditch that one and use idleout instead.

 

[wizzer]

RIGHT! To add another dimension to this, i've just tried the same thing on our backup server, which had Openserver 6 installed exactly the same time as the main server, and this one works as expected. I just knew that would happen.

PHV - I've had a look at keepalive, and the only option seems to turn off what should it should do by default (but isn't doing)

 

[KenCunningham]

Interesting (if frustrating!). Another shot in the dark:

Are there any daemons running on the backup server which don't have an equivalent on the production one?

All I ask of you
Is make my wildest dreams come true

 

[wizzer]

I'll check that out in a bit Ken, what's getting me is that it works for applications running under c-shell, just not under the bash shell!