I would like to change the number of login attempts a user can attempt when using telnet to connect to the server. Right now a user will get 4 attempts to enter the login and password before they get a "Connection to host lost" message. The user than has to telnet back into the server to try again. I do not want the telnet users to be locked out after so many attempts, i just want the connection to the host lost after 1 failed attempt. The server is Red Had Enterprise Linux Server release 5.3 (Tikanga). I am having difficulty finding this setting for telnet sessions any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

Hello,

Do the following:
In that file, look for LOGIN_RETRIES or something of that nature, that should be the option that you need to configure.

Cheers,

Josh

Is there any reason you are using telnet? SSH is more secure and supported by virtually everything so there is very little reason to not use it.

if i had to guess -- a OLD text book from 2000-2005

Thanks for the logins.def information. Do you happen to know if there is a way for this setting to take effect without a reboot? Many users are connected to the server 24/7 so it makes reboots very difficult. We are using telnet because it it is an internal server and works better with some third party programs.

I think for doing it on runtime you can use the command /etc/init.d/telnetd stop and start for the telnet process to start with the changed configuration.

Hope this helps.