UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

sweet, thanx, ill try that and let you know. thanks a ton!

hi

I might be looking at this a little too simple, but couldnt you just make a /etc/nologin file, that should stop anyone logging in. and i think you can put a message in the nologin file the same as you can in a motd file,, so when someone tries to login they get a message. Login Disabled until Blah Blah Blah..

?

That would work for many systems, but I don't know if it would work for all... Another possibility would be to take it down to single-user via init...

The only problem is that the nologin should prevent anyone from logging in unless you're on the sys console, so if you don't have access to it, and you log out / get logged out, you're screwed.

It's worth a shot though...
djatwork, do you think that idea would work?
What Unix are you working with?

If you are rebuilding a database there should be an option to start it read-only or to cut access completely so users could not get on to it.

If you don't want folks on the system at all, touch /etc/nologin (you must be root and must stay on the system - if you touch /etc/nologin the only way to get on the system if you mistakenly sign off and don't remove it is via the console as root - at least in Solaris).

Also, you can put your message in /etc/nologin to let the people know that the system is down for maintenance (see man page for nologin)

Hey livinfree:

prioris$root> uname -a
SCO_SV prioris 3.2 2 i386
prioris$root>

Yeah, its a very old version of SCO, and my company is too cheap to upgrade, so i have to work with what i have.

I havent tried it yet, but it sounds good. I will research it further.