TABLE OF CONTENTS The problem is not that there are problems. The problem is expecting otherwise and thinking that having problems is a problem.
Theodore Rubin
Problems affecting user accounts are among the most frequent to arise in system administration. The wide variety of such problems and the fact that many of them are caused by a user's own actions makes it necessary for an administrator to be familiar with their causes and solutions. In this chapter, we'll discuss the principal types of account problems and how to deal with them. This is not a comprehensive list of all possible user account problems; such a list would be impractically huge, if not impossible to produce. The problem areas covered here include the most common types of problems that an administrator might encounter. For other types of user account problems, the troubleshooting techniques presented in this and other chapters should at least provide a way to approach them.
Some types of user account problems, such as login and password problems, are greatly influenced by the system's security configuration. A system's security level (base security or enhanced security) often determines the correct method of troubleshooting a user account problem. Because these topics are so closely linked, we'll also discuss security-related problems in this chapter.
The general term user account problems includes problems that prevent one or more users from accessing their accounts or using them effectively. These problem areas include the following:
Login problems
Password problems
Shell problems
All three of these...
