pam_issue(8)

pam_issue8

Pam module to add issue file to user prompt

Usage

pam_issue.so [noesc] [issue=issue-file-name]

Overview

pam_issue is a PAM module to prepend an issue file to the username prompt. It also by default parses escape codes in the issue file similar to some common getty's (using \x format).

Recognized escapes:

\d

current day

\l

name of this tty

\m

machine architecture (uname -m)

\n

machine's network node hostname (uname -n)

\o

domain name of this system

\r

release number of operating system (uname -r)

\t

current time

\s

operating system name (uname -s)

\u

number of users currently logged in

\U

same as \u except it is suffixed with "user" or "users" (eg. "1 user" or "10 users")

\v

operating system version and build date (uname -v)

Options

noesc

Turns off escape code parsing.

issue=issue-file-name

The file to output if not using the default.

Module types provided

Only the auth module type is provided.

Return values

PAM_BUF_ERR

Memory buffer error.

PAM_IGNORE

The prompt was already changed.

PAM_SERVICE_ERR

A service module error occurred.

PAM_SUCCESS

The new prompt was set successfully.

Examples

Add the following line to /etc/pam.d/login to set the user specific issue at login:

        auth optional pam_issue.so issue=/etc/issue

Releases

10 releases since Debian 5.0 (Lenny); the text changed 8 times.

  1. 5.0
  2. 6.0
  3. 7
  4. 8–9
  5. 10
  6. 11
  7. 12
  8. 13
  9. Arch

Author

pam_issue was written by Ben Collins <[email protected]>.

From pam 1.7.3-1 in Arch Linux 2026-11-01. Parsed by carta from the page's man source.