What is this auto logout?
Ans : Auto logout is a concept to force user to logout from the remote server. If the open session to remote server is idle for a given time. This is a security measure Linux administrators follow for terminating idel sessions to remote servers.
Why actually we require auto logout?
Ans : As a security measure, This is a good practice to set this, because it’s not a good idea/practice to keep open terminal idle for longer duriations.
How to accomplish this for a system wide setting?
Ans : This can be achieved by two ways.

1. Open /etc/profile and append TMOUT variable. See my below example

Export TMOUT=600 # 10 minutes in seconds
typeset -r TMOUT
This will set time-out to 600 sec(ie 10mins) and I have given typeset -r which read-only and will not allow users to change this. Save the file and exit.

 

2. By creating /etc/profile.d/sessiontimout.sh file then keeping above mention entries in it.
Export TMOUT=600 # 10 minutes in seconds
typeset -r TMOUT
Now save and exit the file

As this is a script we have to change the permissions too.
#chmod +x /etc/profile.d/sessiontimout.sh

How to accomplish this for individual users?

Ans : We can edit ~/.bashrc file as given below.

Open ~/.bashrc file for a given user and write below two line in to it.

TMOUT=600

export TMOUT

Save the file and source it as given below.

source ~/.bashrc

This change can be seen only for that user. Please share your thoughts on this, if you know better option to do it.

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Surendra Anne

Mr Surendra Anne is from Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh, India. He is a Linux/Open source supporter who believes in Hard work, A down to earth person, Likes to share knowledge with others, Loves dogs, Likes photography. He works as Devops Engineer with Taggle systems, an IOT automatic water metering company, Sydney . You can contact him at surendra (@) linuxnix dot com.