🚀 go-pugleaf

Stafford@Vax2.Winona.MSUS.EDU, writes:

>If FORCEX is not an issue, I cannot see why this is such a complex
>problem.  We have an elementary DCL procedure servering as a good
>idle process killer.  It can make execeptions based upon username,
>group, terminal, job and kill from the top down, protect system jobs, have
>on-off hour times for certain kills, most of the good stuff.

The examples on this list were how to AVOID getting terminated, not how to
write an idle process terminator.

>Elementary
>
>        create Indexed file
>        Loop:
>        wait n unless first iteration (the max idle time)
>        Get PID and process info
>        Process exemptions
>        Append padded USERNAME to F$TIME()
>        Check Indexed file - does this key exist?
>                if it does then the job has been idle for n minutes.
>                                KILL it.
>                if it does not exist, then Put this as a KEY to Indexed file
>        repeat Loop

Cute.  But, remember, this is the MACRO32 list.  And $FORCEX is very important
to ensure proper image rundown.  There are usually two reasons for idle
process killers:

  o security
  o reduce consumption of resources by idle processes

Your DCL procedure probably consumes more resources than you would save by
killing a few idle processes.

The program WATCHER, written by Matt Madison, provides all of your features
and lots more, does a $FORCEX before killing the process, and hardly consumes
any CPU time at all.  It's free.

-Dan Wing, dwing@uh01.colorado.edu or wing_d@ucolmcc.bitnet (DGW11)
 Systems Administrator, University Hospital, Denver