[SOLVED] How to disable "No mail." message upon login?

Question

This one's really stumping me. I disable the mail message a few months ago by creating a .hushlogin file in my home directory. That did the trick. Now, I am seeing the message again, and I don't know why. .hushlogin still exists in my home directory. Here's my /etc/login.defs:
# /etc/login.defs - Configuration control definitions for the login package.
# Three items must be defined: MAIL_DIR, ENV_SUPATH, and ENV_PATH.
# If unspecified, some arbitrary (and possibly incorrect) value will
# be assumed. All other items are optional - if not specified then
# the described action or option will be inhibited.
# Comment lines (lines beginning with "#") and blank lines are ignored.
# Modified for Linux. --marekm
# Delay in seconds before being allowed another attempt after a login failure
FAIL_DELAY 3
# Enable display of unknown usernames when login failures are recorded.
LOG_UNKFAIL_ENAB no
# Enable logging of successful logins
LOG_OK_LOGINS no
# Enable "syslog" logging of su activity - in addition to sulog file logging.
# SYSLOG_SG_ENAB does the same for newgrp and sg.
SYSLOG_SU_ENAB yes
SYSLOG_SG_ENAB yes
# If defined, either full pathname of a file containing device names or
# a ":" delimited list of device names. Root logins will be allowed only
# upon these devices.
CONSOLE /etc/securetty
#CONSOLE console:tty01:tty02:tty03:tty04
# If defined, all su activity is logged to this file.
#SULOG_FILE /var/log/sulog
# If defined, file which maps tty line to TERM environment parameter.
# Each line of the file is in a format something like "vt100 tty01".
#TTYTYPE_FILE /etc/ttytype
# If defined, the command name to display when running "su -". For
# example, if this is defined as "su" then a "ps" will display the
# command is "-su". If not defined, then "ps" would display the
# name of the shell actually being run, e.g. something like "-sh".
SU_NAME su
# *REQUIRED*
# Directory where mailboxes reside, _or_ name of file, relative to the
# home directory. If you _do_ define both, MAIL_DIR takes precedence.
# QMAIL_DIR is for Qmail
#QMAIL_DIR Maildir
MAIL_DIR /var/spool/mail
# If defined, file which inhibits all the usual chatter during the login
# sequence. If a full pathname, then hushed mode will be enabled if the
# user's name or shell are found in the file. If not a full pathname, then
# hushed mode will be enabled if the file exists in the user's home directory.
HUSHLOGIN_FILE .hushlogin
#HUSHLOGIN_FILE /etc/hushlogins
# *REQUIRED* The default PATH settings, for superuser and normal users.
# (they are minimal, add the rest in the shell startup files)
ENV_SUPATH PATH=/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
ENV_PATH PATH=/bin:/usr/bin
# Terminal permissions
# TTYGROUP Login tty will be assigned this group ownership.
# TTYPERM Login tty will be set to this permission.
# If you have a "write" program which is "setgid" to a special group
# which owns the terminals, define TTYGROUP to the group number and
# TTYPERM to 0620. Otherwise leave TTYGROUP commented out and assign
# TTYPERM to either 622 or 600.
TTYGROUP tty
TTYPERM 0600
# Login configuration initializations:
# ERASECHAR Terminal ERASE character ('\010' = backspace).
# KILLCHAR Terminal KILL character ('\025' = CTRL/U).
# UMASK Default "umask" value.
# The ERASECHAR and KILLCHAR are used only on System V machines.
# The ULIMIT is used only if the system supports it.
# (now it works with setrlimit too; ulimit is in 512-byte units)
# Prefix these values with "0" to get octal, "0x" to get hexadecimal.
ERASECHAR 0177
KILLCHAR 025
UMASK 077
# Password aging controls:
# PASS_MAX_DAYS Maximum number of days a password may be used.
# PASS_MIN_DAYS Minimum number of days allowed between password changes.
# PASS_WARN_AGE Number of days warning given before a password expires.
PASS_MAX_DAYS 99999
PASS_MIN_DAYS 0
PASS_WARN_AGE 7
# Min/max values for automatic uid selection in useradd
UID_MIN 1000
UID_MAX 60000
# System accounts
SYS_UID_MIN 500
SYS_UID_MAX 999
# Min/max values for automatic gid selection in groupadd
GID_MIN 1000
GID_MAX 60000
# System accounts
SYS_GID_MIN 500
SYS_GID_MAX 999
# Max number of login retries if password is bad
LOGIN_RETRIES 5
# Max time in seconds for login
LOGIN_TIMEOUT 60
# Which fields may be changed by regular users using chfn - use
# any combination of letters "frwh" (full name, room number, work
# phone, home phone). If not defined, no changes are allowed.
# For backward compatibility, "yes" = "rwh" and "no" = "frwh".
CHFN_RESTRICT rwh
# List of groups to add to the user's supplementary group set
# when logging in on the console (as determined by the CONSOLE
# setting). Default is none.
# Use with caution - it is possible for users to gain permanent
# access to these groups, even when not logged in on the console.
# How to do it is left as an exercise for the reader...
#CONSOLE_GROUPS floppy:audio:cdrom
# Should login be allowed if we can't cd to the home directory?
# Default in no.
DEFAULT_HOME yes
# If defined, this command is run when removing a user.
# It should remove any at/cron/print jobs etc. owned by
# the user to be removed (passed as the first argument).
#USERDEL_CMD /usr/sbin/userdel_local
# Enable setting of the umask group bits to be the same as owner bits
# (examples: 022 -> 002, 077 -> 007) for non-root users, if the uid is
# the same as gid, and username is the same as the primary group name.
# This also enables userdel to remove user groups if no members exist.
USERGROUPS_ENAB yes
Please help.
Last edited by nbtrap (2012-07-14 21:59:46)

Answer 1

orbisvicis wrote:see "pam_mail.so" in /etc/pam.d/* and "man pam_mail". You most likely need the nopen argument.
Thank you. I fixed it by changing a line in /etc/pam.d/system-login. Specifically, I changed
session optional pam_mail.so dir=/var/spool/mail standard
to
session optional pam_mail.so dir=/var/spool/mail nopen