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Is there any way to keep track of number of attempts made by a user to login into his system?

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On linux, logins and failed logins are logged in binary format in /var/log/wtmp and /var/log/btmp respectively. In order to view those logs in human readable format, you need to use the command last or lastb. You can also check your /var/log/auth.log (which is plain text) for successful / failed authentication attempts.

In OpenBSD there is no /var/log/btmp, but the last command works. Also, the authlog is in /var/log/authlog.

In Solaris the last command works, but (at least on the system I have access to) authlog seems to be empty.

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Thank you very much.... Is it possible to run a program before user login?. Not like startup programs but those likely to be run once after user login. – Winbros Mar 24 '11 at 18:08
On my system, Debian squeeze, both /var/log/wtmp and /var/log/btmp are binary files. – Faheem Mitha Mar 24 '11 at 18:51
Yeah those are binary files. So how will you know how many failed attempts are made before an successful login. – Winbros Mar 24 '11 at 19:50
@Winbros: last and lastb produce a human readable output from wtmp and btmp respectively. In debian, /var/log/auth.log logs every login attempt, failed or successful. – forcefsck Mar 24 '11 at 21:27
@forcefsck Ok let me check – Winbros Mar 25 '11 at 12:51
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