[10.11] Auto-logout does not auto-logout

[McAwesome]

I've been trying to get auto-logout to work on 10.11 machines. Officially, this should be really easy as it can be set locally and through a configuration profile. Neither of those work. Does anyone have a graceful way to force the logout since the official and obviously labeled ways do not function as expected? All of my searching brings me to forums of people wanting to do the exact opposite(disable auto-logout) of what I'm trying to get set up(auto-logout after 15 minutes idle).

For what it's worth, the machines are running 10.11.2, on domain, and are set(locally and by configuration profile) to auto-logout after 1 minute idle. I'll extend that 1 minute idle time to 15 once I get it actually logging out like it's supposed to. I've also tested it with 3, 5, and 15 minutes idle time with no luck whatsoever. There is a screensaver that starts up after 20 minutes if someone is logged in and 5 minutes if at the login screen.

[seann]

We use Shea Craig's script on our public macs.

https://github.com/sheagcraig/auto_logout

[MikeV-Holden]

Interesting. I wonder if it's possible to have an auto-logout triggered by a MacBook going to sleep when closed?

[McAwesome · Accepted solution]

@seann I'm actually using that as a failsafe, but I hate reboot sounds in a computer lab. Basically our setup is (assuming things work properly) logout attempt at 15m and reboot attempt at 30 if Word or something kept it logged in. I just don't like resorting to rebooting. Weirdly the reboot is more problematic than the logout. I wonder if the logout prompt is counted as activity to Shea Craig's auto-reboot thing.

I narrowed down the issue source and resolved it. Apparently while I confirmed the configuration I was working on set things correctly, I neglected to exclude the machine from all the other configurations. There was a conflict between configurations with Auto-Logout configured and those without, and OSX apparently takes the safe route and assumes if something isn't configured in one configuration, go with it being unconfigured. Excluding it from other configurations seems to get Auto-Logout working as best as it can.