pam_mail(8) — Linux manual page

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | MODULE TYPES PROVIDED | RETURN VALUES | EXAMPLES | SEE ALSO | AUTHOR | COLOPHON

PAM_MAIL(8)                 Linux-PAM Manual                 PAM_MAIL(8)

NAME         top

       pam_mail - Inform about available mail

SYNOPSIS         top


       pam_mail.so [close] [debug] [dir=maildir] [empty] [hash=count]
                   [noenv] [nopen] [quiet] [standard]

DESCRIPTION         top

       The pam_mail PAM module provides the "you have new mail" service
       to the user. It can be plugged into any application that has
       credential or session hooks. It gives a single message indicating
       the newness of any mail it finds in the user's mail folder. This
       module also sets the PAM environment variable, MAIL, to the
       user's mail directory.

       If the mail spool file (be it /var/mail/$USER or a pathname given
       with the dir= parameter) is a directory then pam_mail assumes it
       is in the Maildir format.

OPTIONS         top

       close
           Indicate if the user has any mail also on logout.

       debug
           Print debug information.

       dir=maildir
           Look for the user's mail in an alternative location defined
           by maildir/<login>. The default location for mail is
           /var/mail/<login>. Note, if the supplied maildir is prefixed
           by a '~', the directory is interpreted as indicating a file
           in the user's home directory.

       empty
           Also print message if user has no mail.

       hash=count
           Mail directory hash depth. For example, a hashcount of 2
           would make the mail file be /var/spool/mail/u/s/user.

       noenv
           Do not set the MAIL environment variable.

       nopen
           Don't print any mail information on login. This flag is
           useful to get the MAIL environment variable set, but to not
           display any information about it.

       quiet
           Only report when there is new mail.

       standard
           Old style "You have..." format which doesn't show the mail
           spool being used. This also implies "empty".

MODULE TYPES PROVIDED         top

       The session and auth (on establishment and deletion of
       credentials) module types are provided.

RETURN VALUES         top

       PAM_BUF_ERR
           Memory buffer error.

       PAM_SERVICE_ERR
           Badly formed arguments.

       PAM_SUCCESS
           Success.

       PAM_USER_UNKNOWN
           User not known.

EXAMPLES         top

       Add the following line to /etc/pam.d/login to indicate that the
       user has new mail when they login to the system.

           session  optional  pam_mail.so standard

SEE ALSO         top

       pam.conf(5), pam.d(5), pam(8)

AUTHOR         top

       pam_mail was written by Andrew G. Morgan <[email protected]>.

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the linux-pam (Pluggable Authentication
       Modules for Linux) project.  Information about the project can be
       found at ⟨http://www.linux-pam.org/⟩.  If you have a bug report
       for this manual page, see ⟨//www.linux-pam.org/⟩.  This page was
       obtained from the project's upstream Git repository
       ⟨https://github.com/linux-pam/linux-pam.git⟩ on 2023-12-22.  (At
       that time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in
       the repository was 2023-12-18.)  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
       [email protected]

Linux-PAM Manual               12/22/2023                    PAM_MAIL(8)