vlock is a program to lock one or more sessions on the Linux console.
This is especially useful for Linux machines which have multiple
users with access to the console. One user may lock his or her
session(s) while still allowing other users to use the system on
other virtual consoles. If desired, the entire console may be locked
and virtual console switching disabled.
By default, only the current VC (virtual console) is locked. With
the -a,-all option all VCs are locked. The locked VCs cannot be
unlocked without the invoker's password. And, for the paranoid,
vlock makes it a trying experience for those attempting to guess the
password, so unauthorized access to session(s) is highly unlikely.
Please note that it is entirely possible to completely lock yourself
out of the console with the -a,--all option if you cannot remember
your password! Unless you are able to kill vlock by logging in
remotely via a serial terminal or network, a hard reset is the only
method of ``unlocking'' the display.
vlock works for console sessions primarily. However, there is
support for trying to lock non-console sessions as well, but that
support has not been well tested.
-a,--all
Lock all console sessions and disable VC switching.
-c,--current
Lock the current session (this is the default).
-h,--help
Print a brief help message.
-v,--version
Print the version number of vlock.
This page is part of the kbd (Linux keyboard tools) project.
Information about the project can be found at
⟨http://www.kbd-project.org/⟩. If you have a bug report for this man‐
ual page, send it to kbd@lists.altlinux.org. This page was obtained
from the project's upstream Git repository
⟨git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/legion/kbd.git⟩ on
2018-02-02. (At that time, the date of the most recent commit that
was found in the repository was 2017-01-08.) If you discover any
rendering problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe
there is a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
(which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
man-pages@man7.org
Linux User's Manual 16 May 1996 VLOCK(1)