Keith Mastin wrote:
>>Dear NetBSD,
>>
>>I managed to lock all users other than root out of my V1.6 system.
>>In the name of Internet security, I used chmod to keep etc, home, and other
>>directories and files from being seen from the web. I soon realized that I
>>could no longer log in as a regular user:
> 
> 
>  :)
> 
> ...once you get this solved (if you can, I dunno, seems like a fubar?), 
> you can do what you originally wanted to do by simply editing the passwd 
> file so the home account of the users is /bin/nologin and make a file 
> named /bin/nologin that contains a message, something like:
> 
> #!/bin/csh
> Sorry, this account is only allowed to send/recieve email from this 
> server. System logins are not permitted for your account. Please contact 
> the Sys Admin for details.
> 
> HTH

have a look at /sbin/nologin

ariolc# cat /sbin/nologin
#! /bin/sh
echo "This account is currently not available."
exit 1

no need to re-invent the wheel:-)

regards

frank