A generalized preconditioned modified Hermitian and skew-Hermitian splitting (GPMHSS) real-valued iteration method is proposed for a class of complex symmetric indefinite linear systems. Convergence theory is established and the spectral properties of an associated preconditioned matrix are analyzed. We also give several variants of the GPMHSS preconditioner and consider the spectral properties of the preconditioned matrices. Numerical examples illustrate the effectiveness of our proposed method.
