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Re: Idling?

> Is there any way to automatically kick off people who have been idle for more 
> than an hour?

First of all, it should be noted that there isn't really any technical reason 
for doing this.. Something which many people don't realize is that idle users 
really don't put any load at all on a MOO server or much load on the 
underlying unix system either, and whether or not they're connected is 
therefore fairly irrelevant for performance/lag/DB-size/whatever concerns..

That aside, DU does use a routine I wrote up for this, more than anything else
just to help keep our @who lists clean and full of people who really are 
actually present (or semi-present) and haven't just walked off for 3 days and 
forgotten they're connected..  The routine we use on DU follows.

This routine is actually more sophisticated than most.. it allows for 
flexibility in idle limits by time of day, it warns people in advance before 
booting them, supports a custom (explanation) message as part of the warning, 
etc..  It doesn't check lag limits or anything as someone proposed, as as I 
mentioned above, they're kinda irrelevant anyway.. it could be added fairly 
easily if someone wants to do it anyway, I suppose..

Please don't do idle-booting without warning first (as this routine does).. if
nothing else, I personally really can't stand it.  (this is actually one of 
the main reasons I don't go to BayMOO much.. every time I do and I go work on
another MOO for a bit, *bam* it very rudely just kicks me off without even
asking me if I'm still there.. I know it's just a badly designed bit of code, 
and I know it's easy enough just to reconnect, but it still makes me feel
kinda unwelcome anyway.)

Anyway, there are several properties this routine uses.. idle_check_enabled 
and idle_check_interval are fairly self explanatory.. idle_limits consists of 
a list of entries of the form:
  {time-of-day, {warning-limit, boot-limit}} - set limits for time-of-day on
or
  {time-of-day, 0}                           - set no limit for time-of-day on

time-of-day is seconds-since-midnight of the time when the given limit should 
begin.  warning-limit is the number of seconds idle someone has to be to get a
warning, and boot-limit is how long someone has to be idle to actually get 
booted off.  Entries should be in increasing order of time-of-day (the routine
just takes the last entry in the list for which time-of-day <= the current
time of day).

idle_warning is text (if any) to be printed as part of the warning, to explain
why the whole thing is doing what it's doing, or whatever..

This routine is set up to apply to everyone except wizards and descendants of 
$moo_link (all net-link-objects on DU are descendants of $moo_link).. this is 
easy enough to change however you want..

On DU we put a call to $wiz_utils:idle_check in $login:parse_command so it 
gets called every time someone connects, to make sure it's always running even
if the task somehow gets zapped..

Anyway, here you go.. have fun (the below settings will boot after an hour, 
with a warning after 55 minutes).
-R

@prop $wiz_utils.idle_check_enabled 1
@prop $wiz_utils.idle_check_task 0
@prop $wiz_utils.idle_check_interval 300
@prop $wiz_utils.idle_limits {{0, {3300, 3600}}}
@prop $wiz_utils.idle_warning {}
@verb $wiz_utils:idle_check tnt
@program $wiz_utils:idle_check
if (!this.idle_check_enabled)
  return;
endif
if (!$code_utils:task_valid(this.idle_check_task))
  fork id (0)
    interval = this.idle_check_interval;
    warned = {};
    while (this.idle_check_enabled)
      time = $time_utils:to_seconds(ctime()[12..19]);
      best = -1;
      limits = {};
      for x in (this.idle_limits)
        if ((x[1] > best) && (x[1] <= time))
          best = x[1];
          limits = x[2];
        endif
      endfor
      if (limits)
        warning = limits[1];
        cutoff = limits[2];
        span = cutoff - warning;
        warned_players = $list_utils:slice(warned);
        for x in (connected_players())
          if (x.wizard || $object_utils:isa(x, $moo_link))
          elseif ((idle_seconds(x) > warning) && (!(x in warned_players)))
            x:notify_lines(this.idle_warning);
            x:notify(tostr("You have been idle for longer than ", $time_utils:english_time(warning), ".  If you are still idle in ", $time_utils:english_time(span), " you will be disconnected."));
            warned = {@warned, {x, time() + span}};
          endif
        endfor
        for x in (warned)
          if (x[2] <= time())
            if ($object_utils:connected(x[1]) && (idle_seconds(x[1]) >= cutoff))
              x[1]:notify(("*** You have been idle for longer than " + $time_utils:english_time(cutoff)) + ".  Closing connection ***");
              boot_player(x[1]);
            endif
            warned = setremove(warned, x);
          endif
        endfor
      else
        warned = {};
      endif
      suspend(interval);
    endwhile
  endfork
  this.idle_check_task = id;
endif
. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     Alex Stewart - riche@crl.com - Richelieu @ Diversity University MOO
                         http://www.crl.com/~riche/
            "Difficult answers lead to intelligent questions."
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