Hello,

I am looking for a program that can force me to stop using Linux when I need to do something else, like eating dinner or going to bed.

This time enforcement could be as simple as changing the user password and then logging me out at a certain time (of course it should also change the password back later)

It should also require a password (different from the user password) to change its settings or uninstall it, so that I can’t tamper with it in a weak moment.

Is there such a program for Linux?

  • arran 🇦🇺@aussie.zone
    1·
    3 days ago

    Back when I started out I wanted something similar I used webmin (I think it was) which is a perl webserver interface for linux configuration. There are a couple issues with gui/tui based solutions:

    1. Config files can be very expressive, and it’s hard to make a data structure and a ui which matches it, which causes it to clobber comments and extra config options you turn on (the comments help a lot with config files)
    2. They can be very out of date, and break your config unless you’re aware of the differences in version
    3. Webmin was the source of many security vulnerabilities
    4. They actively prevent learning - config files are a bandaid, although pam, like selinux, fstab, crypttab are painful ones to make a mistake in but the good news is often fixing them is booting into a live cd and changing it, so make backups.

    Along with webmin tuis were popular for config too in a similar way. IDK if redhat still does it but there were a bunch similar to nmtui.

    I don’t think that this one is particular complex to write. But you might run into other issues. Let us know if it’s on your system etc. Look in /lib/security/ to see if you have the pam_time.so installed. Might be the first place to go.