You can ask another user to check if your account was disabled in the password database.

If you can’t log in, it’s possible that your account was disabled. If you can find someone else who’s logged in, have them check your entry in the password database.

There are three ways that you can tell if an account has been disabled:

  • If you see an asterisk in the password field (the second field), then no one can log in under that account.

    lois:*:189:100:Lois Lane:/home/lois:/bin/csh
  • If you see something like nosh or noshell or none in the last field, then the password will be accepted, but the person will not be able to access her account.

    lois:4y19O/wqZ0s:189:100:Lois Lane:/home/lois:/bin/noshell
  • The passwd entry might have been removed completely (although this isn’t likely, since administrators don’t like to reuse login names or user IDs).

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