Enable User account

nitro · 12-01-2005, 04:55 PM

My team has been running OSX webservers for a while, but we recently had a webserver and its corresponding database inherited to us. Both are running redhat 9.

Anyway, I have an issue, that seems simple, but our support guys don't seen to be helping out much so I thought I would post this here.

We have a mysql database server running on redhat 9 and the account seems to be disabled. When I try to log in remotely via ssh, it says access denied. When I try to login directly on the machine it says the account has been disabled by the adminstrator.

How do you enable the account? I have looked at the (GUI) user manager and the password hasn't expired or been locked. So, nothing to do there.

Is there some way for root to be able to enable the account? Becuase I haven't seen where it can be enabled.

bosewicht · 12-01-2005, 05:16 PM

you are trying to connect to mysql? check out UPDATE or GRANT user also check the configs

uopjohnson · 12-01-2005, 05:32 PM

I don't' think there is a way to disable accounts. If you log in as root you might want to look at /etc/passwd to see if the account exists. if it exists you can change the password with

Code:

passwd USER

and try to log in again.

Artanicus · 12-01-2005, 05:32 PM

As ive understood it, its the point of the idea to disable logging in as the mysql user. You can get access to it only by issuing as root:

Code:

su mysqluser

Alot more secure that way.. (:

Kristijan · 12-01-2005, 05:33 PM

nitro,

As root you should be able to just;

Code:

su mysql

That should switch you to the user mysql, from there you should be able to do what you wish.

If you have a user already set up in mysql, you can try;

Code:

$ mysql -u username -p

Give it a shot and let me know how you go.

Regards,
Kristijan

Kristijan · 12-01-2005, 05:44 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by uopjohnson
I don't' think there is a way to disable accounts. If you log in as root you might want to look at /etc/passwd to see if the account exists. if it exists you can change the password with

Code:

passwd USER

and try to log in again.

uopjohnson,

You can disable a user account by editing the /etc/shadow file (Assuming you're using shadow password; or you can edit /etc/passwd file instead) and replace the password with an asterisk (*)

Another way to do this is with the usermod command.

Code:

usermod -L username

Will lock the user.

Code:

usermod -U username

Will unlock the user.

I'm pretty sure that's the correct syntax, it's been a while since I've done it

Regards,
-Kristijan

uopjohnson · 12-01-2005, 06:00 PM

Nice. I will add that to my list...
I had forgotten about all of the system accounts and such, which are disabled, so I guess I knew that this was possible. I always end up disabling shell access by using /bin/false instead of disabling the user entirely. I also seem to have forgotten about that when I posted... long day I guess.