pam_mkhomedir 8 Linux-PAM Manual pam_mkhomedir PAM module to create users home directory pam_mkhomedir.so silent debug umask=mode skel=skeldir 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. silent Don't print informative messages. debug Turns on debugging via syslog3 . umask=mask The file mode creation mask is set to mask. The default value of mask is 0022. If this option is not specified, then the permissions of created user home directory is set to the value of HOME_MODE configuration item from /etc/login.defs. If there is no such configuration item then the value is computed from the value of UMASK in the same file. If there is no such configuration option either the default value of 0755 is used for the mode. skel=/path/to/skel/directory Indicate an alternative skel directory to override the default /etc/skel. Only the session module type is provided. PAM_BUF_ERR Memory buffer error. 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. /etc/skel Default skel directory 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 pam.d5 , pam8 . pam_mkhomedir was written by Jason Gunthorpe <jgg@debian.org>.