pam_get_user(3) — Linux manual page

PAM_GET_USER(3)              Linux-PAM Manual             PAM_GET_USER(3)

NAME         top

       pam_get_user - get user name

SYNOPSIS         top

       #include <security/pam_modules.h>

       int pam_get_user(const pam_handle_t *pamh, const char **user,
                        const char *prompt);

DESCRIPTION         top

       The pam_get_user function returns the name of the user specified
       by pam_start(3). If no user was specified it returns what
       pam_get_item (pamh, PAM_USER, ... ); would have returned. If this
       is NULL it obtains the username via the pam_conv(3) mechanism, it
       prompts the user with the first non-NULL string in the following
       list:

       •   The prompt argument passed to the function.

       •   What is returned by pam_get_item (pamh, PAM_USER_PROMPT, ...
           );

       •   The default prompt: "login: "

       By whatever means the username is obtained, a pointer to it is
       returned as the contents of *user. Note, this memory should not be
       free()'d or modified by the module.

       This function sets the PAM_USER item associated with the
       pam_set_item(3) and pam_get_item(3) functions.

RETURN VALUES         top

       PAM_SUCCESS
           User name was successful retrieved.

       PAM_SYSTEM_ERR
           A NULL pointer was submitted.

       PAM_CONV_ERR
           The conversation method supplied by the application failed to
           obtain the username.

       PAM_BUF_ERR
           Memory buffer error.

       PAM_ABORT
           Error resuming an old conversation.

       PAM_CONV_AGAIN
           The conversation method supplied by the application is waiting
           for an event.

SEE ALSO         top

       pam_end(3), pam_get_item(3), pam_set_item(3), pam_strerror(3)

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the linux-pam (Pluggable Authentication
       Modules for Linux) project.  Information about the project can be
       found at ⟨http://www.linux-pam.org/⟩.  If you have a bug report
       for this manual page, see ⟨//www.linux-pam.org/⟩.  This page was
       obtained from the project's upstream Git repository
       ⟨https://github.com/linux-pam/linux-pam.git⟩ on 2023-12-22.  (At
       that time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in
       the repository was 2023-12-18.)  If you discover any rendering
       problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there is
       a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
       corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
       (which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
       man-pages@man7.org

Linux-PAM Manual                12/22/2023                PAM_GET_USER(3)

Pages that refer to this page: pam(3),  pam_get_item(3)

HTML rendering created 2025-09-06 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH.