AUTOLOG(8)

✨ AUTOLOG(8) ✨

okay bestie, this is the autolog page from the System Manager's Manual, and it's literally all about logging out idle users 💤👋

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🎀 NAME 🎀

autolog — logs out idle users. that's it, that's the whole vibe 💅

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

autolog [ options ]

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so here's the tea ☕ — the program reads the utmp file, entry by entry. for each 'user process' it grabs the username and compares it against the entries in the configuration file (peep autolog.conf(5) for that one, iykyk).

the first entry that matches both the name, the group, and the tty line of the process? that's the one that gets used to conduct the automatic logout. no cap, first match wins 🏆

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💖 CALL 💖

/etc/init.d/autolog start

or

autolog

to run this program in daemon-mode 👑

autolog -o

to run this program as "ordinary" program. but lowkey keep in mind: even when running as ordinary program, it will stay in memory until all its jobs are done. it's committed like that 🫶

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✨ OPTIONS ✨

• -a — (all processes) print information on ALL utmp entries — not just user processes. nosy in the best way 👀
• -d — (debug mode) highkey helpful when you're setting up your configuration file. the program runs in foreground rather than forking, and it prints out verbose messages about what it is doing. main character energy, narrating its own life 🎬
• -n — (nokill) use this to prevent autolog from actually "killing" anyone. use -d and -n together when setting up a new configuration file. (this will not affect killing of lost processes.) 🚫💀
• -o — (ordinary) use this to run this program as ordinary program, not as daemon. program will end when its job is done. in this case, some data is kept in "/var/lib/autolog/autolog.data". this is read when the program is called again. it remembers. it's sentimental like that 😭
• -f config_file_name — use this to override the default: "/etc/autolog.conf"
• -l log_file_name — use this to override the default: "/var/log/autolog.log". note that if this file doesn't exist, no logging will happen. create the file (with touch) to enable logging. so if you're wondering why nothing's logging… yeah, that's why 🙈
• -t idle_time — use this to override the internal default idle time (minutes)
• -g grace_period — use this to override the internal default grace period (seconds)
• -m yes/no — use this to override the internal mailing switch. if "yes" the program will send mail to the users right after killing them. brutal? maybe. thoughtful? also yes 💌
• -c yes/no — use this to override the internal "pre-clear" switch. if "yes" the program will clear the terminal screen before warning the user. clean slate energy 🧼
• -w yes/no — do timeouts based on total session time — not idle time. (hard) ⏰
• -l yes/no — if set to "yes" activities will be written to the logfile if present. 📓

⚠️ bestie, heads up: yes, -l shows up twice with two totally different jobs (one takes a log_file_name, one takes yes/no). that's just how it is, don't @ me, i'm only reporting the facts fr fr 💀

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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, bestie 🎀💖 this page comes to you from the Linux Administrative Utilities corner of the System Manager's Manual, rocking the AUTOLOG(8) glow-up — stay idle-free and hydrated 🌸🦋✨