Help !!!! Needed to find system idle time

[crazpiyush]

i need to create script which will shut down rhel6 workstations if it is not used for 30min for that i need a command which will give me system idle time i.e. that time in which system has not received any mouse or keyboard interrupts.
i think gnome desktop is also doing same thing, if keyboard/mouse interrupts is not received for some time screen will be locked.

its really urgent. !!!!

[atreyu]

well, you can just run a loop and check for the elapsed time of the screensaver (if/when it is found running), e.g. (untested):

#!/bin/bash
while :; do
  pid=$(/sbin/pidof gnome-screensaver)
  if [ $? -eq 0 -a -n "$pid" ]; then
    etime=$(ps -o etime --no-heading -p $pid)
    echo "Screensaver (pid $pid) is running, elapsed time: $etime"
  fi
  sleep 1
done

However long gnome-session is running would be saved to the etime variable. then you parse it and shut down after whatever time limit you want.

but i think this solution would only work if someone was logged onto the desktop first (and had a screensaver configured to run), versus the computer just sitting at the graphical login prompt. but maybe that's what you want...