autolog.conf(5)

💖 NAME 💖

okay so bestie, autolog.conf(5) — this is the manual page for autolog.conf, and autolog.conf is literally the configuration file for the autolog command. no cap. 💅

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✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

The config file is a bunch of lines, and each line describes a class of processes that are subject (or not subject, we love options) to a certain auto logout procedure. Each line has any number of switches. Value switches look like "name=value". Boolean switches look like "name" or "noname" — yes, noname is a thing, it's giving negation energy. 🫶

Using these switches, you can define a username, a group, and a tty line. These descriptions can contain wildcard characters (regular expressions). You can also define an idle time, a grace period, and a few other options. When the program reads the config file, it creates a record for each config line. A value gets assigned to each variable in the record whether or not you specify one explicitly. Values for missing variables come from defaults that are compiled in and can be modified from the command line. slay. 💖

If no entries match a given process, that process will be spared from an untimely demise. So it's a good idea to always have a "cleanup" line at the end of the config file to catch anything that might have been missed by the more explicit definitions. Since the default name, group, and line are all ".+", a simple line like:

idle=30

will do. Actually, any one switch can be specified on the line and all the others will get the default values. iconic. ✨

If no config file is found, the program will create a single entry which has all values set from the defaults. This entry will match any process on any port (name=.+ line=.+ group=.+). Therefore, the default action is to kill all processes. 💀 not me being dramatic but that's literally what it says.

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🌸 ENTRIES 🌸

• name= — A regular expression specifying which username(s) to match. bestie, regex your heart out.
• group= — A regular expression specifying which group(s) to match.
• line= — A regular expression specifying which tty line(s) to match. Omit the "/dev/" part of the special name. yes, leave that part at home.
• idle= — An integer specifying the number of --minutes-- of idle (or connect) time to allow before beginning automatic logoff. An idle time of 0 exempts the process from automatic logoff. so 0 is the "not today" setting. 💅
• grace= — An integer specifying the number of --seconds-- from the initial warning to killing the process. countdown vibes. ⏳
• ban= — An integer specifying the number of --minutes-- from killing the process to the moment, the user may login again. (after exceeding his session). okay so they gotta wait. periodt.
• hard — A boolean value indicating total connect time will be considered rather than idle time.
• mail — A boolean value indicating that mail will be sent to the user explaining that he was killed. 💌
• clear — A boolean value indicating that the screen will be cleared before a warning message is sent.
• warn — A boolean value indicating that a warning message will be sent at the beginning of the "grace" period.
• log — A boolean value indicating that activities will be logged to the logfile (if it exists).

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🦋 FURTHER ENTRIES 🦋

There's another group of entries that lets you set some general options. Each of them takes a whole line. Don't mix them with the other entries from before. no cap, keep them separate. 🚫

• nolostkill — A boolean value indicating whether lost processes should be killed. If there is a process with uid between 500 and 60000 and the owner is not logged in, it is assumed as lost and will be killed. bye bestie. 💀
• ps=command — on some strange or old systems the ps-command has different parameters. This makes it possible to set a completely different command. It is only important, that this command delivers one heading line and then lines with usernames and process-ids (pid). e.g.: ps=ps aux

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🌈 EXAMPLE 🌈

        name=root line=tty[1-7] idle=0
        name=guest idle=5 grace=60 nomail hard warn
        group=lynx-.* idle=10 grace=60 clear
        idle=60 grace=30

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👑 AUTHOR 👑

Kyle Bateman <kyle@actarg.com> (autolog 0.35), James Dingwall <james.dingwall@ncrvoyix.com> (autolog 0.42.2)

This manual page was modified for Debian by Paul Telford <pxt@debian.org>

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and that's a wrap! this page came from the Linux source, lives in the Configuration Files section, and its title is autolog.conf(5). stay slay, bestie. 💖✨🦋