The Expiring Account
In enterprise or educational environments, system administrators frequently configure Ubuntu servers with strict user account policies. One common security measure is account expiration: setting a specific date where a temporary contractor or student’s account is automatically locked or, in some automated setups, completely deleted by a scheduled script. If you are managing an Ubuntu machine and find that a specific user account is suddenly vanishing or becoming completely inaccessible after a certain period, it is highly likely that an expiration date was inadvertently set during the account creation process.
Removing the Expiration Date
To ensure a user has permanent access to the system and stop Ubuntu from automatically locking or deleting the user account based on a timeline, you must modify the account’s aging information using the `chage` utility.
You must perform this action via the terminal with root privileges. Open a terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T or via SSH). To check the current expiration status of a user, type sudo chage -l username (replace “username” with the actual account name). Look at the “Account expires” line. If there is a date listed, you need to remove it. To set the account to never expire, execute the following command: sudo chage -E -1 username. The `-E -1` flag specifically tells the system to remove the expiration date entirely. If you run the `chage -l username` command again, the “Account expires” line should now read “never”. The account is now permanent until manually removed by an administrator.