My machine has these files and as far as i can tell the gtmp isn't a very popular file due to its lack of listing on the internet and the ptmp is a lockfile for the yppasswdd utility. It creates the ptmp lockfile and then deletes it when its done checking everything. But should this utility crash the ptmp lock file remains intact locking the password files. Well, i'm trying to add users to my machine and it won't let me because "/etc/gtmp or /etc/ptmp lockfile may exist" so how do i combat this problem? I've tryed just removing both files but they just reappear the next time i try to go do anything with users.

Regards,

Skull,

hmm, do you have the nis service running (cause that does remind me off when i see yppassword (yp = yellow pages)), if this is true, stop the service.

I have no clue if this works or not, i just thought about it with the yp, but give it a try

Arg, sounds like it almost locked you out... Hmm well pred has a bit of a point, also try to reinstall the progs then uninstall them... LOL well the magical answer to such REINSTALL THE LINUX OS, lol I know you don't want to do that... Something went fubar, hmm well also often the files and perhaps info would be in you *nix cd or other distros. Also can try contacting the distro support. Let us know results.

Well, i got it working it seems somehow. I went into gnome and loaded the gui user configuration tool there and closed it, loged out of everything, and logged back in as root. The temp lock files had vanashed. It seems my box had puked while i was trying to add a user a while back.

Regards,

Skull

Ya No [censored], forgot about root :+|. Ya, it sucks when it pukes up... Well cool deal.