block user account after failed password


 
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# 1  
Old 06-30-2010
block user account after failed password

hi guys

I have Centos 5.4

The idea is lock the user account for 3 minutes after he has entered his password incorrectly 3 times.

I've modified /etc/pam.d/system-auth
Code:
auth        required      pam_tally.so onerr=fail per_user deny=3
account     required      pam_tally.so reset

besides the code above I used these 2 commands to get things working

Set lock out at 3 failed login attempts:
faillog -m 3
Exclude root from this lockout mechanism:
faillog -u root -m 0


as you see I have not defined the lock_time=180 yet since no matter where I put it up there it won't work

where should it be? in order that after 3 or more failed attempts and after wait 3 minutes user can log to the system since for instance he now remember his correct password

Now I can unblock his account manually by faillog -r -u username but I want to avoid that admin task

thanks a lot
# 2  
Old 06-30-2010
From the man page of pam_tally
Quote:
lock_time=n
Always deny for n seconds after failed attempt.

unlock_time=n
Allow access after n seconds after failed attempt. If this option is used the user will be locked out for the specified amount of time after he exceeded his maximum allowed attempts. Otherwise the account is locked until the lock is removed by a manual intervention of the system administrator.
In my interpretation (tho I'm not sure) this means that lock_time will block access for a certain time after each failed attempt, which would be useful to slow down a brute-force attack. unlock_time, however, sets the time until an account is automatically unlocked after the maximum number of tries.
This User Gave Thanks to pludi For This Post:
# 3  
Old 06-30-2010
One side note -

You do not want accounts like oracle, root, or other major resource owners accounts locked on a production system. If you have people hacking accounts on a production system you should consider other approaches - than lockout.
This User Gave Thanks to jim mcnamara For This Post:
# 4  
Old 06-30-2010
thanks for the info

the point is

Code:
auth        required      pam_tally.so onerr=fail per_user deny=3 lock_time=180

or 
account     required      pam_tally.so reset lock_time=180

it won't work

no matter where I put lock_time=180 either line what I want does not work

---------- Post updated at 04:07 PM ---------- Previous update was at 04:02 PM ----------

Quote:
Originally Posted by jim mcnamara
One side note -

You do not want accounts like oracle, root, or other major resource owners accounts locked on a production system. If you have people hacking accounts on a production system you should consider other approaches - than lockout.

interesting what you say what other approaches you think I should use or you are using?

thanks
 
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