faillog
FAILLOG(8) FAILLOG(8)
NAME
faillog - examine faillog and set login failure limits
SYNOPSIS
faillog [-u login-name] [-a] [-t days]
[-m max] [-pr]
DESCRIPTION
faillog formats the contents of the failure log, /var/log/faillog, and
maintains failure counts and limits. The order of the arguments to
faillog is significant. Each argument is processed immediately in the
order given.
The -p flag causes failure entries to be printed in UID order. Enter-
ing -u login-name flag will cause the failure record for login-name
only to be printed. Entering -t days will cause only the failures more
recent than days to be printed. The -t flag overrides the use of -u.
The -a flag causes all users to be selected. When used with the -p
flag, this option selects all users who have ever had a login failure.
It is meaningless with the -r flag.
The -r flag is used to reset the count of login failures. Write access
to /var/log/faillog is required for this option. Entering -u login-
name will cause only the failure count for login-name to be reset.
The -m flag is used to set the maximum number of login failures before
the account is disabled. Write access to /var/log/faillog is required
for this option. Entering -m max will cause all accounts to be dis-
abled after max failed logins occur. This may be modified with -u
login-name to limit this function to login-name only. Selecting a max
value of 0 has the effect of not placing a limit on the number of
failed logins. The maximum failure count should always be 0 for root
to prevent a denial of services attack against the system.
Options may be combined in virtually any fashion. Each -p, -r, and -m
option will cause immediate execution using any -u or -t modifier.
CAVEATS
faillog only prints out users with no successful login since the last
failure. To print out a user who has had a successful login since
their last failure, you must explicitly request the user with the -u
flag, or print out all users with the -a flag.
Some systems may replace /var/log with /var/adm or /usr/adm.
FILES
/var/log/faillog - failure logging file
SEE ALSO
login(1), faillog(5)
AUTHOR
Julianne Frances Haugh (jockgrrl@ix.netcom.com)
FAILLOG(8)