# who keeping history



## es131245 (Feb 28, 2014)

Maybe I don't understand something... But command `who` shows who is currently online. I'm using 2 desktops to connect to server. If I use exit I will not be in the list. I did not use exit, i've only  clicked shutdown desktop pc. Now server who shows that there are like 10 connections. (2 ips, 2 ptys, dates for last 10 days). When I've finally used "exit" on pty/1 ALL current and old connections on pty/1 disappeared.

Is that's fine?


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## SirDice (Feb 28, 2014)

The other sessions disappearing might be a coincidence. Normally a session ends when you exit or "hang-up". But it's possible the sessions never got the "hang-up" signal. Then they'll stay until the shell times out, which could be a very long time.


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## es131245 (Feb 28, 2014)

Is there a way to limit that timeout?


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## SirDice (Feb 28, 2014)

For csh(1) shells you can set autologout (which is set to 60 minutes by default) in your ~/.cshrc: 
	
	



```
set autologout = 5
```
 Other shells have similar variables, for bash you need to set TMOUT. Setting them logs a user off after a set number of minutes of being idle.


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## es131245 (Feb 28, 2014)

Strange, I never setted those variables and there isnt sign of it. So if its set to default 60 minutes how could it made up to a week? Moreover if same pts was used


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## SirDice (Feb 28, 2014)

The process itself may have hung up. It's also possible the shell was running something and that process never released the shell. Then it would be stuck there until that process finally exits. Your last login may have nudged it enough to exit causing the shell that started it to finally exit too.


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