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 Print 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 at . AVAILABILITY The nologin command is part of the util-linux package which can be downloaded from Linux Kernel Archive . util-linux 2.40 2024-04-06 NOLOGIN(8)