Fed up of pestering DBAs so I thought I would try the UNIX administrators.

I have logged onto a UNIX server. I am still logged in.

My colleague tried to log in and the account is locked. No-one is admitting locking it deliberately or by mistake.

Can I unlock the account from my logged in session?

I have tried to use passwd to reset the password but it rejects the Old Password I use which is the same as the one I logged in as.

1) How do I unlock the account?
2) Any way of finding out how it was locked?

Your account is locked or your mates is? Have you got the root password?

You need admin access (root or similar) to unlock and the method to do it will most probably be vendor specific.

Both using the same account.

No root Access.

Hoping to by pass the Administrator but looks like we're stuff.

Thought so but was hoping for some cheat.

They wont let me play in Unix. Sounds like your borked.

If your account is locked – you needs root to unlock it. If you want to change the password, you can do it yourself – if the account isn't locked.

Did your mate try logging in a few times incorrectly? That may have caused the lock.

Is it Unix or a Linux variant? If Linux, which one?

try the following
ps -ef
now see if there is something that lock the seesion if so
kill -9 PIDoftheprocess.
If you're on the x windows, jusr ctrl+alt+backspace.

are two people logged in right now as you?

do a 'who'

LOL @ juan

It's okay guys. Someone 'guessed' the root password.

We were being naughty and sharing access using the same account to connect which is why we wanted to avoid the administrators. It was some automatic tool that connected 3 times in a row and locked the account. Found the culprit and kicked her.

There is a way around that but I can't remember exactly what. Its a mad mix of commands that eventually gives you back door root access for acct admin…

DVW – that is what I was after.

just 8hours ago.

never mind

Glad to be of service mate 😉