After weeks of frustration with my RHEL terminal windows closing themselves after a small interval of inactivity, (go for lunch and my terminals were closed)… I finally found out the solution to prevent this ‘default’ behaviour that comes in RHEL.

The /etc/profile was the culprit.  Simply remove the following lines or update them to a much more respectable time interval and restart your X windows.

TMOUT=3600
export TMOUT

Thats one I’ll not forget as its sure a pain when your in development mode with all your terminals set where you want them…. turn away for an hour and find them all closed!