How to Temporarily Disable User Logins

Temporarily disable user logins during system shutdown or routine maintenance. Superuser logins are not affected. For more information, see the nologin(4) man page.

1. Assume the Primary Administrator role, or become superuser.

   The Primary Administrator role includes the Primary Administrator profile. To create the role and assign the role to a user, see Chapter 2, Working With the Solaris Management Console (Tasks), in System Administration Guide: Basic Administration.

2. Create the /etc/nologin file in a text editor.

   # vi /etc/nologin

3. Include a message about system availability.

4. Close and save the file.

Example 3–3 Disabling User Logins

In this example, users are notified of system unavailability.

# vi /etc/nologin
(Add system message here)
 
# cat /etc/nologin 
***No logins permitted.***

***The system will be unavailable until 12 noon.***

You can also bring the system to run level 0, single-user mode, to disable logins. For information on bringing the system to single-user mode, see Chapter 10, Shutting Down a System (Tasks), in System Administration Guide: Basic Administration.