pam_mail(8) — Linux manual page
PAM_MAIL(8) Linux-PAM Manual PAM_MAIL(8)
NAME
pam_mail - Inform about available mail
SYNOPSIS
pam_mail.so [close] [debug] [dir=maildir] [empty] [hash=count]
[noenv] [nopen] [quiet] [standard]
DESCRIPTION
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
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
The session and auth (on establishment and deletion of
credentials) module types are provided.
RETURN VALUES
PAM_BUF_ERR
Memory buffer error.
PAM_SERVICE_ERR
Badly formed arguments.
PAM_SUCCESS
Success.
PAM_USER_UNKNOWN
User not known.
EXAMPLES
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
pam.conf(5), pam.d(5), pam(8)
AUTHOR
pam_mail was written by Andrew G. Morgan <morgan@kernel.org>.
COLOPHON
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
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