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LOGIN(1)		  BSD General Commands Manual		      LOGIN(1)

NAME
     login — log into the computer

SYNOPSIS
     login [-pq] [-h hostname] [user]
     login -f [-lpq] [-h hostname] [user [prog [args...]]]

DESCRIPTION
     The login utility logs users (and pseudo-users) into the computer system.

     If no user is specified, or if a user is specified and authentication of
     the user fails, login prompts for a user name.  Authentication of users
     is configurable via pam(8).  Password authentication is the default.

     The following options are available:

     -f	     When a user name is specified, this option indicates that proper
	     authentication has already been done and that no password need be
	     requested.	 This option may only be used by the super-user or
	     when an already logged in user is logging in as themselves.

	     With the -f option, an alternate program (and any arguments) may
	     be run instead of the user's default shell.  The program and
	     arguments follows the user name.

     -h	     Specify the host from which the connection was received.  It is
	     used by various daemons such as telnetd(8).  This option may only
	     be used by the super-user.

     -l	     Tells the program executed by login that this is not a login ses‐
	     sion (by convention, a login session is signalled to the program
	     with a hyphen as the first character of argv[0]; this option dis‐
	     ables that), and prevents it from chdir(2)ing to the user's home
	     directory.	 The default is to add the hyphen (this is a login
	     session).

     -p	     By default, login discards any previous environment.  The -p
	     option disables this behavior.

     -q	     This forces quiet logins, as if a .hushlogin is present.

     If the file /etc/nologin exists, login dislays its contents to the user
     and exits.	 This is used by shutdown(8) to prevent users from logging in
     when the system is about to go down.

     Immediately after logging a user in, login displays the system copyright
     notice, the date and time the user last logged in, the message of the day
     as well as other information.  If the file .hushlogin exists in the
     user's home directory, all of these messages are suppressed.  -q is spec‐
     ified, all of these messages are suppressed.  This is to simplify logins
     for non-human users, such as uucp(1).  login then records an entry in
     utmpx(5) and the like, and executes the user's command interpreter (or
     the program specified on the command line if -f is specified).

     The login utility enters information into the environment (see
     environ(7)) specifying the user's home directory (HOME), command inter‐
     preter (SHELL), search path (PATH), terminal type (TERM) and user name
     (both LOGNAME and USER).

     Some shells may provide a builtin login command which is similar or iden‐
     tical to this utility.  Consult the builtin(1) manual page.

     The login utility will submit an audit record when login succeeds or
     fails.  Failure to determine the current auditing state will result in an
     error exit from login.

FILES
     /etc/motd		message-of-the-day
     /etc/nologin	disallows logins
     /var/run/utmpx	current logins
     /var/mail/user	system mailboxes
     .hushlogin		makes login quieter
     /etc/pam.d/login	pam(8) configuration file
     /etc/security/audit_user
			user flags for auditing
     /etc/security/audit_control
			global flags for auditing

SEE ALSO
     builtin(1), chpass(1), newgrp(1), passwd(1), rlogin(1), getpass(3),
     utmpx(5), environ(7)

HISTORY
     A login utility appeared in Version 6 AT&T UNIX.

BSD			      September 13, 2006			   BSD
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