[plug] adduser

Anthony J. Breeds-Taurima tony at cantech.net.au
Mon Nov 18 11:57:08 WST 2002


On Sat, 16 Nov 2002, dad wrote:

> I have tried to add a user on my Linuxbox and i keep getting the following 
> error msg:
> 	vipw lockfile (/etc/ptmp) is present!
> 
> I have no idea what this about and any advice would be greatly appreciated

It means on of:
 a) you are not the root user;
 b) someone (who is root) is running vipw
 c) at some stage an account creation/deletion has failed to clean up properly.

Make sure that no one else that has root privileges on that box is adding
users or running vipw.  Assuming that is done and you are root delete the
/etc/ptmp file, then try the account addition again.


Yours Tony

   Jan 22-25 2003           Linux.Conf.AU            http://linux.conf.au/
		  The Australian Linux Technical Conference!



More information about the plug mailing list