Hello

I keep reading that by adding the following line

auth required pam_tally.so onerr=fail deny=2

to the file /etc/pam.d/system-auth that accounts should be locked out after 2 bad password attempts. I have tried this and it is not working for me. Is there something else I have to do? Do I need to reboot afterward?

I have RHES 5, I am using ssh to login to the system.

I don't intend to leave it at 2 I will increase to 5, I'm just using 2 for the number of attempts for testing purposes. I know this makes the system open to denial of service attacks but its a security requirement where I work.

I also have a pam_tally2.so should I be using that instead? I've tried it once or twice without luck.

Thank you

found the problem, the following line is also required and I didn't have it
account sufficient pam_localuser.so