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Disable a user's account without deleting it
Authored by: mshmgi on Nov 15, '05 06:39:21AM

Maybe I'm a bit of a simpleton ... but why not just change the user's password?



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Disable a user's account without deleting it
Authored by: gshenaut on Nov 15, '05 07:14:12AM

That's what I was thinking, but that wouldn't remove the account from the login window. But if you were going to change the password, one thing you could do is to change it to a random string of characters, not keeping the string. That way, only a superuser could turn it around, by changing the password to something more reasonable.

I bet someone could even make a utility to "randomize" someone's password that way, creating an inaccessible, but otherwise normal-appearing account, something that could conceivably be a useful alternative to the "Disabled" flag in the hint.

Greg Shenaut



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Disable a user's account without deleting it
Authored by: romulis on Nov 16, '05 01:35:29PM

If it really works, disabling the account should be better than just changing the password.

For example: If the user has an ssh key set up - they can login without using the local password, so changing the password doesn't really help. (of course, the GUI login would be blocked though). It all depends on the people you're dealing with :-)

I didn't know that OS-X actually provides a way to disable accounts - it would be interesting to see what it really does (also haven't tested it :-) (ie: if it would still be possible to start processes with that person's uid etc)



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Disable a user's account without deleting it
Authored by: frotzboy on Nov 16, '05 07:35:12PM

Actually this is for the family computer, where my kids' access can be temporarily suspended for a variety of transgressions. Disabling the account is better than modding pwds since it's unambiguous (for certain violations I just shut off the account without further comment or warning, they know why) and easily reversable (I can reenable the account without having to go through a password change cycle).



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