There is a package called procps. It includes various useful (read as nifty) utilities. One of such utility is skill which is responsible to send a signal to users and process such as:
* Halt user terminal
* Kill user and logout
Also note that these are utilities to browse the /proc filesystem, which is not a real file system but a way for the kernel to provide information about the status of entries in its process table.
Task: How to halt/stop user called didi
Type the skill command as follows:
# skill -STOP -u didi
You muse be root to stop other users.
Task: How to resume already halted user called didi
Send CONT single to user didi, type the following command:
# skill -CONT -u didi
Task: How to kill and logout user called didi
You can send KILL single, type the following command:
# skill -KILL -u didi
Task: Kill and logout all users
The ultimate command to kill and logout all users, type the following command:
# skill -KILL -v /dev/pts/*
Please note that send users warning message or logout notice using wall command to avoid data loss.
Other useful nifty utilities provided by procps package
* w : Show who is logged on and what they are doing
* kill : Send signal to a process aka kill process
* top : Display Linux tasks and other important stuff
* vmstat : Display virtual memory statistics
* free : Display free and used memory (RAM) statistics
* slabtop : Display kernel slab cache information in real time
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