Manual: nologin

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 

SEE ALSO
       login(1), passwd(5), pam_nologin(8)

REPORTING BUGS
       For bug reports, use the issue tracker .

AVAILABILITY
       The nologin command is part of the util-linux package which can be downloaded from Linux Kernel Archive
       .

util-linux 2.41.3					 2025-12-15						  NOLOGIN(8)