How to kick out inactive user on Linux
Introduction
As system administrators, it is important to ensure only authorized users have access to the system. One way to do this is by kicking out inactive users. In this blog post, we will discuss how to kick out inactive users in Linux.
First
First, use w to check all the login user
09:19:58 up 5 days, 2:53, 2 users, load average: 1.00, 1.01, 1.00
USER TTY FROM LOGIN@ IDLE JCPU PCPU WHAT
root pts/1 192.168.1.100 07:52 56:32 0.06s 0.06s -bash
root pts/2 192.168.1.101 09:19 2.00s 0.03s 0.00s w
Then
Confirm that the pts/1 user is unresponsive and kick it out with the following command
pkill -kill -t pts/1
Automating the Process
Manually checking and terminating inactive users can be a tedious and time-consuming task. Fortunately, you can automate this process using a script that runs periodically. The script can check the list of users and their activity status and terminate inactive sessions automatically. You can use the last command to get a list of all logged-in users and their login history. By comparing this with the output of the w command, you can determine which users are inactive and terminate their sessions using the pkill command. You can schedule this script to run every few minutes using a cron job.
Conclusion
Kicking out inactive users is an essential part of managing a multi-user Linux system. By terminating inactive sessions, you can avoid security breaches, resource wastage, and other issues. In this blog post, we discussed how to terminate inactive sessions manually and how to automate the process using a script. By following these steps, you can keep your Linux system secure and efficient.