UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi there,

I'm a beginner with UNIX and have to manage a set of 15 users. The problem we have is that there are only 15 licenses for these users, so occasionally they get locked out and can't log back on.

I've been using the ps -ef|grep command to check the users, as well as the w commnand, also using the kill -9 command, however, one of my client's simply can't connect even though the licences are available once I logout (I am 'root'). it's PC6 who is unable to logon - gives an error of maximum users.

Is there anything else I can do/ any other command to see which processes are locked, etc? I've been searching online with no success just yet.

http://www.bsd.org/unixcmds.html
http://www.indiana.edu/~uitspubs/b017/

# w
12:04pm up 41 days, 19:30, 30 mins, 15 users, load average: 0.18, 0.18, 0.00
User Tty Login@ Idle JCPU PCPU What
pc9 ttyp0 9:58am 4 00:33 00:31 dfrun
pc3 ttyp1 8:08am 00:50 00:47 dfrun
pc2 ttyp2 11:43am 00:09 00:08 dfrun
pc10 ttyp3 8:08am 00:47 00:42 dfrun
pc13 ttyp4 8:17am 01:24 01:19 dfrun
pc5 ttyp5 8:33am 01:34 01:27 dfrun
pc15 ttyp7 8:38am 3 00:49 00:46 dfrun
pc8 ttyp8 11:32am 00:21 00:19 dfrun
pc11 ttyp9 8:38am 01:37 01:33 dfrun
pc12 ttyp10 8:52am 01:03 01:01 dfrun
pc1 ttyp11 9:03am 3 00:29 00:27 dfrun
pc4 ttyp12 9:10am 4 00:27 00:26 dfrun
pc14 ttyp13 9:25am 01:36 01:31 dfrun
pc7 ttyp14 9:25am 1 01:18 01:14 dfrun
root ttyp15 12:04pm 00:00 00:00 w
#

Your assistance would be most appreciated!

I don't quite get it. Why is 15 licenses for 15 users a problem? And which UNIX is this that has such asinine license restrictions, so that I may advocate not using it for the rest of my life?

Unfortunately, that's the way the system is. If you have any ideas of how to view and clear any locks on accounts, I would love to hear them.

Which UNIX is it? They're not all the same, what solution you get might depend on it.

is there any way for me to find out?

Post the output of

Code:

uname -a

Terminal type is xterm
# uname -a
SCO_SV tmds4 3.2 2 i386