Detecting local user before stealing his machine

  • Thread starter Thread starter Kenneth Porter
  • Start date Start date
K

Kenneth Porter

I remote-login to a lab machine at a customer site. I don't want to steal a
session if someone is using the machine there. Is there some way to tell if
the machine's in use before I grab it?
 
Depending on how you have the XP box configured you should be seeing
warning messages as described in this KB article...

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/280828/en-us
Click to expand...

Alas, that doesn't handle the case I'm dealing with. We use a common user
ID for lab machines as we're manipulating the product (an automation
system). The system is typically left running an exercise loop to validate
code. Forcing a logout on a running system could be dangerous, as it would
bypass any graceful shutdown of the system under test.
 
Kenneth said:
I remote-login to a lab machine at a customer site. I don't want to
steal a session if someone is using the machine there. Is there
some way to tell if the machine's in use before I grab it?
Click to expand...
Depending on how you have the XP box configured you should be
seeing warning messages as described in this KB article...

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/280828/en-us
Click to expand...

Kenneth said:
Alas, that doesn't handle the case I'm dealing with. We use a
common user ID for lab machines as we're manipulating the product
(an automation system). The system is typically left running an
exercise loop to validate code. Forcing a logout on a running
system could be dangerous, as it would bypass any graceful shutdown
of the system under test.
Click to expand...

If you are using a common logon username/password - you aren't REALLY
logging anyone out (in Windows XP).. you are merely taking over their
current session and locking the screen from anyone but that username and/or
an administrator. They can even take it back from you.

Now if you are logging in as a different username/password combination, you
would get a warning as directed to earlier. (Windows XP again.)

Now - you could look at the remote processes with many different tools - see
if anything is really utilizing the CPU/memory heavily.. Or write a
logon/logoff script that lets you know when someone is on that machine in a
variety of ways.
 
If you are using a common logon username/password - you aren't REALLY
logging anyone out (in Windows XP).. you are merely taking over their
current session and locking the screen from anyone but that username
and/or an administrator. They can even take it back from you.

Now if you are logging in as a different username/password
combination, you would get a warning as directed to earlier. (Windows
XP again.)

Now - you could look at the remote processes with many different tools
- see if anything is really utilizing the CPU/memory heavily.. Or
write a logon/logoff script that lets you know when someone is on that
machine in a variety of ways.
Click to expand...

True, this gets a bit more complicated. Typically I want to avoid
yanking the system out from under someone editing code locally, so he's
typing in an editor and there won't be much CPU usage. Maybe if there
were some way to read the UI activity over the last 15 minutes, similar
to how a screen saver works. (That user is typically my boss working on-
site.)
 
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