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login: prompt never appears.
An account can be explicitly disabled in the file /etc/passwd (or in
/etc/shadow, for Unix implementations that use it) by placing a
special character in the password field of the user's entry. If you
suspect your account is disabled, you must ask someone with the
root password to log on and change the appropriate files.
2.6.3 A bad shell or a botched dotfile
If you enter your password only to get the message "Connection closed
by foreign host", one of two things may be happening. The first possibility
is that the shell you selected is not present or simply not executable
because of its permissions. You can usually discount this possiblity
if you did not set your own shell using chsh. "Closed" connections
also occur when the shell exits prematurely because of an error in one of
your shell's dotfiles. In either case, you will need an administrator's
help to fix the problem.
2.6.4 /etc/shells (ftp)
If you are using ftp to connect to a machine where you know you
have an account, but the program denies you access as soon as you
enter your username, then the shell defined in your /etc/passwd entry
does not appear in the file /etc/shells. The latter is a list of
accepted
shells used by ftp as an added security measure. The solution,
of course, is to have the administrator change /etc/shells or to
change your shell itself using the chsh command, if available.
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