Force command to be run on logout or disconnect?

Question

I'm logging in to a system via SSH and I'd like to be able to force a command to be run on logout, whether that's an intentional logout (exiting the shell) or because my SSH connection has dropped/been terminated. Is there any way to set this up? My best guess right now is to change the login shell to a program that intercepts the signal sent on SSH closing (SIGHUP?) and executes the command then, but I'm wondering if there's a cleaner solution.

Answer 1

The best way to do this would be to use pam.

In /etc/pam.d you will have several files, one of them will be called sshd. If you only want to affect ssh, and not other logins (such as a GUI, or real TTY), you want this file.
If you want to affect all logins, you'll want a 'common' file. The name of this other 'common' file varies by distro, but you can track it down by following the include and substack statements in the sshd file until you get to the base file.

Once you've identified the file in /etc/pam.d that you want to use, add a line such as the following to the session section:

session     optional    pam_exec.so quiet /etc/pam_session.sh

This will result in calling /etc/pam_session.sh every time someone logs in and logs out (whether gracefully or ungracefully).

Now you just need to create /etc/pam_session.sh. Below is an example you could use to run something every time someone logs out:

#!/bin/sh
if [ "$PAM_TYPE" = "close_session" ]; then
  something
fi

(don't forget to chmod a+x the script)

Answer 2

I would try to do it with .bash_logout on the remote system.
This will only work if you logout/disconnect normally invoked by you.
If e.g. your connections is killed by somewhat or someone,
there is no execution of .bash_logout.