Under Linux operating system you can use the faillog command to display faillog records or to set login failure limits. faillog command displays the contents of the failure log from /var/log/faillog database file. It also can be used for maintains failure counters and limits. If you run faillog command without arguments, it will display only list of user faillog records who have ever had a login failure.
su is used to become another user during a login session. Invoked without a username, su defaults to becoming the super user. The user will be prompted for a password, if appropriate. Invalid passwords will produce an error message. All attempts, both valid and invalid, are logged to detect abuses of the system. By default [...]
The superuser is a privileged user with unrestricted access to all files and commands. The superuser has the special UID (user ID) 0. You need to become super user (root) only when tasks need root permissions. Here is how to become a super user: