FreeBSD: Disable User’s Login

FreeBSD is a free and open-source Unix-like operating system descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution. It is used to power modern servers, desktops, and embedded platforms.

Securing a system running FreeBSD is important because it can have important data stored on it. In a bigger organization where many users can have access to a system, it is important to identify and disable the user accounts that do not need login access.

This article describes how to disable a user’s login in FreeBSD including in text mode also.

Lock the user account

There are two ways to disable a user’s login. The first one is to deny access to a user account by locking it. You can use pw utility which is used to create modify or remove system users and groups to lock a user account.

Run the following command to lock a user’s account –

# pw lock user_account

For example to lock an account named lalit use –

# pw lock lalit

Now the user lalit will not able to login to his account. If needed you can unlock the login to a user’s account by using –

# pw unlock lalit

The above command will unlock the user account lalit.

Disable user’s login by changing the shell to nologin

The second way to disable the user’s login is by changing the shell to /usr/sbin/nologin. Now change the user’s shell to /usr/sbin/nologin by using the following command –

# chsh -s /usr/sbin/nologin lalit

The /usr/sbin/nologin prevents the system from assigning a shell to users when they try to log in. The user lalit can not access his account because it has been disabled now.

If needed you can re-enable the login to a user’s account. For that, you need to change /usr/sbin/nologin to /bin/sh

# chsh -s /bin/sh lalit

Conclusion

This article explained how to disable the user’s login in a system running FreeBSD. Now if you have a query or want to say something on this topic then write us in the comments below.