The first thing that pops to mind is write your own "shell" and do something like this: #!/bin/sh echo "Your account is locked until you clean your room" logout stash that in /bin/custom_shell make it executable (and w/ -rwxr-xr-x permissions) Then just sudo chsh /bin/custom_shell username I'm sure there are probably buffer overflow/etc type issues if this was a real production type issue, but based on the message, I'm guessing that it'll do.. I haven't tested the above, so perhaps the chsh command is a little different (I'd just edit /etc/passwd, but some folks are squeamish about that kind of stuff..) Matt On 10/8/06, James Zuelow <e5z8652@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > Does anyone know of a method to lock a user account and present a message > or > warning when that user attempts to log in? > > issuing `passwd -l user` will lock the user account out - but the system > will > just tell them that they typed the wrong password. > > What I'd like is for the system to give an arbitrary message when they > fail - > > "Your account is locked until you clean your room" > > is the specific message I have in mind. > > Ideas? > ------------------------------------ > The Juneau Linux Users Group -- http://www.juneau-lug.org > This is the Juneau-LUG mailing list. > To unsubscribe, send an e-mail to juneau-lug-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with > the word unsubscribe in the subject header. > -- | Matt Heavner, Assistant Professor of Physics | University of Alaska Southeast | 11120 Glacier Highway, Juneau, AK 99801 | Phone: (907) 796-6403 Fax: (907) 796-6406 | If Heisenberg was uncertain, why are you so sure? ------------------------------------ The Juneau Linux Users Group -- http://www.juneau-lug.org This is the Juneau-LUG mailing list. To unsubscribe, send an e-mail to juneau-lug-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word unsubscribe in the subject header.