NOLOGIN(8) System Administration NOLOGIN(8)
NAME
nologin - politely refuse a login
SYNOPSIS
nologin [-V] [-h]
DESCRIPTION
nologin displays a message that an account is not available and exits
non-zero. It is intended as a replacement shell field to deny login
access to an account.
If the file /etc/nologin.txt exists, nologin displays its contents to
the user instead of the default message.
The exit status returned by nologin is always 1.
OPTIONS
-c, --command command
--init-file
-i --interactive
--init-file file
-i, --interactive
-l, --login
--noprofile
--norc
--posix
--rcfile file
-r, --restricted
These shell command-line options are ignored to avoid nologin error.
-h, --help
Display help text and exit.
-V, --version
Display version and exit.
NOTES
nologin is a per-account way to disable login (usually used for system
accounts like http or ftp). nologin uses /etc/nologin.txt as an optional
source for a non-default message, the login access is always refused
independently of the file.
pam_nologin(8) PAM module usually prevents all non-root users from
logging into the system. pam_nologin(8) functionality is controlled by
/var/run/nologin or the /etc/nologin file.
HISTORY
The nologin command appeared in 4.4BSD.
AUTHORS
Karel Zak <kzak@redhat.com>
SEE ALSO
login(1), passwd(5), pam_nologin(8)
REPORTING BUGS
For bug reports, use the issue tracker
<https://github.com/util-linux/util-linux/issues>.
AVAILABILITY
The nologin command is part of the util-linux package which can be
downloaded from Linux Kernel Archive
<https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/>.
util-linux 2.41 2025-02-26 NOLOGIN(8)
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