What is ConsoleKit?

ConsoleKit is a framework for defining and tracking users, login sessions, and seats.

What is a seat?

A seat is a collection of sessions and a set of hardware (usually at least a keyboard and mouse). Only one session may be active on a seat at a time.

What is a session?

A session is a collection of all processes that originate from a single common ancestor and retain knowledge of a secret. As an implementation detail, this secret may be stored in the process environment by the login manager under the name XDG_SESSION_COOKIE.

More Information

 http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/ConsoleKit[[BR]] Discussion takes place on the HAL list.
 http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/hal[[BR]]