Dr Andrew Scott G7VAV

MBCS, MIET, Member ACM, Member IEEE

Senior Lecturer
School of Computing
and Communications

D35 InfoLab21
Lancaster University
Lancaster, LA1 4WA
United Kingdom

November 2025
27	28	29	30	31	1	2
3	4	5	6	7	8	9
10	11	12	13	14	15	16
17	18	19	20	21	22	23
24	25	26	27	28	29	30
1	2	3	4	5	6	7

PAM_MKHOMEDIR

Section: Linux-PAM Manual (8)
Updated: 06/04/2011
Index Return to Main Contents

NAME

pam_mkhomedir - PAM module to create users home directory

SYNOPSIS

pam_mkhomedir.so [silent] [umask=mode] [skel=skeldir]

DESCRIPTION

The pam_mkhomedir PAM module will create a users home directory if it does not exist when the session begins. This allows users to be present in central database (such as NIS, kerberos or LDAP) without using a distributed file system or pre-creating a large number of directories. The skeleton directory (usually /etc/skel/) is used to copy default files and also sets a umask for the creation.

The new users home directory will not be removed after logout of the user.

OPTIONS

silent

: Don't print informative messages.

umask=mask

: The user file-creation mask is set to mask. The default value of mask is 0022.

skel=/path/to/skel/directory

: Indicate an alternative skel directory to override the default /etc/skel.

MODULE TYPES PROVIDED

Only the session module type is provided.

RETURN VALUES

PAM_BUF_ERR

: Memory buffer error.

PAM_CRED_INSUFFICIENT

: Insufficient credentials to access authentication data.

PAM_PERM_DENIED

: Not enough permissions to create the new directory or read the skel directory.

PAM_USER_UNKNOWN

: User not known to the underlying authentication module.

PAM_SUCCESS

: Environment variables were set.

FILES

/etc/skel

: Default skel directory

EXAMPLES

A sample /etc/pam.d/login file:

  auth       requisite   pam_securetty.so
  auth       sufficient  pam_ldap.so
  auth       required    pam_unix.so
  auth       required    pam_nologin.so
  account    sufficient  pam_ldap.so
  account    required    pam_unix.so
  password   required    pam_unix.so
  session    required    pam_mkhomedir.so skel=/etc/skel/ umask=0022
  session    required    pam_unix.so
  session    optional    pam_lastlog.so
  session    optional    pam_mail.so standard