Mastering Linux Security and Hardening - Second Edition

Using passwd to lock user accounts

You could also lock Katelyn's account with this:

sudo passwd -l katelyn

This does the same job as usermod -L, but in a slightly different manner. For one thing, passwd -l will give you some feedback about what's going on, whereas usermod -L gives you no feedback at all. On Ubuntu, the feedback looks like this:

donnie@ubuntu-steemnode:~$ sudo passwd -l katelyn [sudo] password for donnie: passwd: password expiry information changed. donnie@ubuntu-steemnode:~$

On CentOS, the feedback looks like this:

[donnie@localhost ~]$ sudo passwd -l katelyn Locking password for user katelyn. passwd: Success [donnie@localhost ~]$

Also, on the CentOS machine, you'll see that passwd -l places two exclamation points in front ...