[NTLUG:Discuss] Can Linux help me limit my kids' time on the computer?

[Wayne Walker]

last and a little shell magic shows how much time was spent in 1 short
line....

[ (0) wwalker at behemoth:~ ]$ last
wwalker  tty1                          Tue Dec 26 13:18   still logged
in   
reboot   system boot  2.6.18-1.2868.fc Tue Dec 26 12:36          (07:14)    
wwalker  tty3                          Tue Dec 26 09:01 - down   (02:05)    
wwalker  tty3                          Tue Dec 26 08:46 - 09:01  (00:15)    
wwalker  tty3                          Tue Dec 26 08:42 - 08:45  (00:02)    
wwalker  tty3                          Tue Dec 26 08:20 - 08:22  (00:01)    
root     tty3                          Mon Dec 25 21:36 - 08:20  (10:44)    
root     tty2                          Mon Dec 25 21:34 - 09:01  (11:27)    
root     tty2                          Mon Dec 25 18:06 - 18:07  (00:00)    
root     tty1                          Mon Dec 25 17:45 - 08:49  (15:04)    
root     tty1                          Mon Dec 25 17:42 - 17:45  (00:02)    
reboot   system boot  2.6.18-1.2798.fc Mon Dec 25 17:40          (17:26)    

wtmp begins Mon Dec 25 17:40:47 2006
[ (0) wwalker at behemoth:~ ]$ last | grep 'wwalker.*)' | sed -e 's/^.*(//' -e 's/)//'
02:05    
00:15    
00:02    
00:01    

2 hours and 23 minutes.

[ (0) wwalker at behemoth:~ ]$ last | grep wwalker.*\) | sed -e 's/^.*(//' -e 's/)//' | perl -e 'while(<>) { ($h,$m) = split /:/; $H += $h; $M += $m }; $minutes = $M%60; $hours = $H + ($M - $minutes)/60;  print "$H:$M\n";'
2:23
[ (0) wwalker at behemoth:~ ]$ 

Admittedly that's a bit much for the average perl one liner, but you
could put that in a script and you are set.

Wayne

On Tue, Dec 26, 2006 at 05:34:02PM -0600, Lance Simmons wrote:
> On 12/26/06, steve <sjbaker1 at airmail.net> wrote:
> 
> > But if you REALLY must do this (sending the message "I don't
> > trust you" to your child).
> 
> It's not a trust issue.  It's that neither of us is really sure how
> much time he's spending on the computer, and we need a way to find
> out.  We've settled on an amount of time per week we agree he can
> spend on the computer, but so far there's no easy way of monitoring
> it.  I want an easy way to check how much time he's spent in the past
> 7 days.
> 
> The "last" command is promising (and I can't believe I didn't know
> about it), but what a pain sorting through the output, and what about
> all the login shells that are run during one session?  Isn't there a
> program that can analyze the logs and give an accurate number of hours
> he has used the computer each day?  It needs to be something he can
> easily use to tell how much time he's on the computer.
> 
> _______________________________________________
> http://www.ntlug.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss

-- 

Wayne Walker

www.unwiredbuyer.com - when you just can't be by the computer

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