hi, can someone tell me " how to reset failed login in solaris 8.0"
a user is not able to login and inspite of my changing password cannot.
I believe it must be because the user tried many attempts.
how do i reset the failed login for the user.
Thanks!
karthik

O.K., I'll give this a try.

Questions:

What error, exactly, is this user getting when they try to login ?
Are any other users having a problem with logging in ?
Are you using a "centralised authentication mechanism" like NIS, NIS+, or LDAP ?
On "what interface" are they trying to login ? Via telnet ? Via SSH ? Are they trying to login to the CDE or GNOME windowing system on the console ?

Solaris does not automatically lock out an account after a number of failed login attempts. Something else must be prohibiting the login. I can only think of:

1) There is a file "/etc/nologin" and NOBODY but root can login.
2) The "shell" defined in the last field of this users entry in the password file does not exist or is NOT listed in /etc/shells.
3) there is a fatal error in their .profile, .login, .cshrc, or .bashrc "initialisation file"
4) There is a minor error in any of the above listed files, and the user is trying to login on the "console" using CDE or GNOME.
5) The users home directory does not exist.
6) The users home directory and files are not owned by the user and/or access to this directory is denied (via permissions).

I think there are a few other reasons, but I am drawing a blank now.

You can "debug" this problem by taking some small steps.

Assuming you can become 'root' on this machine, become root and change to this user's home directory. 'su' to this user by executing:

# su user

source their initialisation file by typing:

$ set +x
$ . ./.profile (or whichever file is the correct file for sh, ksh, or bash)

OR by typing:

% /bin/csh -n ./.cshrc
% /bin/csh -n ./.login

But ONLY IF the user uses the C-Shell or tcsh

This should lead you in the direction of finding the problem.

You could also execute, as root:

su - username

Which will act as if the user logged into the system, and show you any fatal errors (on your screen) that happened during the "login process".

Answer those questions I asked at the beginning, they are important to localising the problem.
===

hello,

can you just login as root and passwd <user>??

cheers.