DESCRIPTION

Track internet use time by user, allowing a sysadmin to specify maximum time limits (per user) in /var/log/tracker/%s (where %s is the login name).

The file needs to be written with just one number: the number of seconds per day that the user is allowed for a connection. The tracker will update the file to contain how many seconds are left, and when the last time the user was logged on was, along with full name and time left information, so it turns the file into something like this:

[torvalds@nehalem ~]$ cat /var/log/tracker/torvalds
2600 441 1222822497
Linus Torvalds
0:35:59 left

which means that user 'torvalds' is allowed 2600 seconds of internet per day (that's the only part that the admin needs to fill in, and can be updated by just writing a new number to the file), has used 441 seconds today, and was last seen logged in at 1222822497 (seconds since epoch).

The full name and time left is purely for visualizers, ie some trivial applications that read this file could/should just ignore the real data, and pick up that "time left" part.

The "per day" is approximate - tracker will clear the 'used time' whenever more than eight hours have passed since last login.

There's a tcl/tk and python visualizers that the user can run to display time left for his account.

INSTALL

make cp tracker /usr/local/bin/

add to system startup. E.g. add tracker to your /etc/rc.local script

mkdir /var/log/tracker/

for each user you want to monitor, do

touch /var/log/tracker/$kidloginname

LINKS http://torvalds-family.blogspot.com/2008/10/tracking-time-kids-spend-online.html