abigail1 hates software: Locked user

• From: Abigail
  Date: 19:54 on 15 Feb 2006
  Subject: Locked user
  
  
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  So, there's this AIX box I've to work with. And on this AIX box, there's
  a user account I often need to work with. So, I want to be able to ssh
  to that user directly, instead of using ssh & su.
  
  I add my public key to the users authorized_keys file, and try to ssh.
  Failure. Checking the logs, it turns out that permission is denied because
  there are to many failed attempts.
  
  Now I have root on the box, but it's been more than a decade since I=20
  last did any administration on an AIX box. Hence, I dive in the manual
  pages to find out how to fix this. After some digging, there's the command
  'chkusr' that looks promising. Indeed, it reports the user has too many
  failed login attempts, and there's even an option to fix this. So, I run
  chkusr with the repair option, and it's fixed. Except that it now reports
  that the account is locked, and it can't fix that. And of course, ssh still
  doesn't work.
  
  Back to the manual pages. Ah, there's SMIT with the 'chuser' argument -
  for changing user parameters. Just what I need. And there it is, "account
  locked" is set to true. I switch it to false. Save and quit. Try ssh
  again. Failed. Too many failed login attempts. WTF? Run SMIT again. The
  account isn't locked. 'chkusr' says the user has too many failed login
  attempts, but it can fix that. And so it does.  But that results in
  the account being locked again. Each time when I run 'SMIT chuser' to
  unlock the account, it starts thinking that the account has too many
  failed login attempts, and when I use 'chkusr' to unset this flag,
  the account becomes locked.
  
  
  Only later I learn that if you run SMIT with a different command, you can
  set even more user parameters, including both the 'locked' and the 'too
  many failed login attempts' flags.
  
  
  
  Abigail
  
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• From: Nicholas Clark
  Date: 20:04 on 15 Feb 2006
  Subject: Re: Locked user
  
  On Wed, Feb 15, 2006 at 08:54:45PM +0100, Abigail wrote:
  > 
  > So, there's this AIX box I've to work with. [snip]
  
  'nuff said.
  
  ("AIX is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is an IBM salesdrone")
  
  Nicholas Clark
  
  
  

• From: John Handelaar
  Date: 20:13 on 15 Feb 2006
  Subject: Re: Locked user
  
  Nicholas Clark wrote:
  > On Wed, Feb 15, 2006 at 08:54:45PM +0100, Abigail wrote:
  > 
  >>So, there's this AIX box I've to work with. [snip]
  > 
  > 
  > 'nuff said.
  > 
  > ("AIX is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is an IBM salesdrone")
  
  And it's pronounced 'aches', for the record.
  
  jh
  
  

• From: Jarkko Hietaniemi
  Date: 06:38 on 16 Feb 2006
  Subject: Re: Locked user
  
  John Handelaar wrote:
  > Nicholas Clark wrote:
  >> On Wed, Feb 15, 2006 at 08:54:45PM +0100, Abigail wrote:
  >>
  >>> So, there's this AIX box I've to work with. [snip]
  >>
  >> 'nuff said.
  >>
  >> ("AIX is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is an IBM salesdrone")
  > 
  > And it's pronounced 'aches', for the record.
  
  I kept spelling it AIDX...
  
  > jh
  > 
  
  
  

• From: Rhesa Rozendaal
  Date: 20:35 on 15 Feb 2006
  Subject: Re: Locked user
  
  Nicholas Clark wrote:
  > On Wed, Feb 15, 2006 at 08:54:45PM +0100, Abigail wrote:
  > 
  >>So, there's this AIX box I've to work with. [snip]
  > 
  > 
  > 'nuff said.
  > 
  > ("AIX is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is an IBM salesdrone")
  > 
  
  It's the french name of a german city, for crying out loud!
  
  

• From: Artur Bergman
  Date: 21:35 on 15 Feb 2006
  Subject: Re: Locked user
  
  
  On 15 Feb 2006, at 12:35, Rhesa Rozendaal wrote:
  
  > Nicholas Clark wrote:
  >> On Wed, Feb 15, 2006 at 08:54:45PM +0100, Abigail wrote:
  >>> So, there's this AIX box I've to work with. [snip]
  >> 'nuff said.
  >> ("AIX is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is an IBM  
  >> salesdrone")
  >
  > It's the french name of a german city, for crying out loud!
  
  
  HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
  
  made my day :)
  
  artur
  
  
  

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