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Automatic Shutdown /Logout Scheduler

aussie_geek

aussie_geek

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Apr 19, 2004
1,096
0
Sydney Australia
Is there an app out there than can automatically logout all users at a specific time of the day without the confirmation box comming up. I have searched VersionTracker and have tried all the apps regarding scheduled shutdowns etc and they are not suitable.

What I want to do is force all apps / users to quit all apps and logout (I don't care if there is unsaved work) at a specific time. The reason is to get my brother off the Mac before midnight! ;)

aussie_geek
 
i havn't found one either, the autoshutdown thing in open firmware doesn't work very good when adobe cs is running.

why dont you give him the Macintosh Colour Classic in your sig, it will take him to midnight to do anything! :D
 
Use the built in one, works just fine.
System Preferences -> Energy Saver -> Schedule

It will give you a grace period of a few minutes before it kills everyones open documents and shuts down. Otherwise, you can stop it and shutdown when you want to.
 

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Yeah, I have tried that app (kutdown) but it comes up with a dialogue box warning the user that the system will shut down after 'xxx' seconds. There is an option to cancel the shutdown and therefore defeats the purpose.

Regarding the scheduler, it has the saame thing as well - a box comes up warning the user it will shutdown.

aussie_geek
 
aussie_geek said:
Yeah, I have tried that app (kutdown) but it comes up with a dialogue box warning the user that the system will shut down after 'xxx' seconds. There is an option to cancel the shutdown and therefore defeats the purpose.
Click to expand...

What does your brother do on the computer? Can you simultaneously log in as yourself, in the background, and leave that account open, and have him log in via fast user switching? Then, the scheduled shutdown will only be in your account. Shouldn't the popup only appear to you (the admin) but not him, when it comes then? And the timer will elapse, and the computer will shut down, including both accounts.

BTW, do tell us the Cinderella pumpkin story behind this! *gets all curious*

:D
 
Well.... Here is the situation

mkrishnan said:
What does your brother do on the computer? Can you simultaneously log in as yourself, in the background, and leave that account open, and have him log in via fast user switching? Then, the scheduled shutdown will only be in your account. Shouldn't the popup only appear to you (the admin) but not him, when it comes then? And the timer will elapse, and the computer will shut down, including both accounts.

BTW, do tell us the Cinderella pumpkin story behind this! *gets all curious*

:D
Click to expand...

Hmmm,

Will have to try that - login as admin in the background..

Regarding the Cinderella Pumpkin component. Well, he is fascinated with online gaming (spends about 12 hours a day on the computer). As he is up all night, the computer is on with the sounds of Jedi Knight - Jedi Academy in the background with a combination of him cursing the computer that he is sometimes not winning and the sounds of a light saber slashing through some virtual opponent. :rolleyes:

When this happens 5 times a week, it is hard to keep regular hours in the household and everyone becomes tired and fed up with it! He needs to just give us a break or we will all go insane!! :eek:

aussie_geek ( in desperate need of a good night's sleep :p)
 
OK, how about a crontab entry as root that runs the shutdown command at the time you want? You'd run "shutdown -h now". You can also replace "now" with a number (seconds) to wait before shutdown. There will be a console message issued, but the system *will* shutdown. If you don't know about crontab, do "man crontab" in a terminal window.

HTH
 
Assuming you have another mac handy, you could always SSH into the iMac, then do sudo shutdown -h yymmddhhmm warning-message GO TO BED! or in place of yymmddhhmm, you could put now to do it immediately, or +(minutes) if you don't want to stay up. I'm pretty sure that would work just right. Then, you could even put that in a cron, and have it run when he usually stays up playing.
 
Hmm, I think on 10.2, that wouldn't shut down the system, but just log everyone out. But I just tried it on my parents iMac (no one was using it anyway ;)), which is now running 10.3, and it seems to have shut down completely.
 
Counterfit said:
Hmm, I think on 10.2, that wouldn't shut down the system, but just log everyone out. But I just tried it on my parents iMac (no one was using it anyway ;)), which is now running 10.3, and it seems to have shut down completely.
Click to expand...
Are you referring to Energy Saver->Schedule or the "shutdown -h" command? If you are talking about the "shutdown -h" command, it behaves the same way regardless of which rev of OS X you are running; it's all FreeBSD underneath, and the "shutdown" command has been around since the beginning of time. As far as Energy Saver goes, I don't see how you would be saving energy by simply logging out users.
 
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