Thread: How to Console lock after 15 minutes of inactivity

I want to lock the console if it has had 15 minutes of inactvity. This excludes ssh sessions, only console users.
Does anyone know of such a program that will either lock the console or log the user off. Either would work.

You can set that up in Group Policy, you'll have to create a group and add the console users to that group in Active Directory then run the group policy on that group. You can set the time if you want to change it to whatever you like. Your users will have to reboot or you'll have to write a script for gpupdate /force. This is all assuming you're running a Windows 2000/2003/2008 server on your network and it's what you're looking for.

Good thought but on the console we very rarely run the guy (Startx). This is for the terminal console login when an admin is logged onto multiple servers (we have over 150) and he forgets to log off of one or more. We share the data center with others and want to ensure that no console is left with root logged on over a period of time. Screen saver is not an option, I should have mentioned that to start with.

What Unix/Linux distribution are you using?
If you use Ubuntu, then just left-click on the main menu as follows:
System>Preferences>ScreenSaver and set Regard the computer as idle after: 15 minutes on the slide bar and check the boxes: Activate screensaver when computer is idle Lock screen when screensaver is active

Then click on Close, and from then on the Screensaver will do the work for you, but you may need to login with your user password to unlock the screen for the user account you logged in as.