Ssh "You have new mail in "

[klatls]

Ubuntu Version:
24.04

How to enable the “You have new mail in” message when I connect via ssh ?

thnks

[teward]

That normally happens automatically when you have unread mail items in the local user mailbox for your user (when there’s an MTA installed on your system).

This usually happens automatically. If you don’t have any “new” messages since the last time you were logged in it won’t show.

However, this doesn’t correspond to your own external email address. It’s usually local to just that SSH user on that system.

[klatls]

I know it should normally happens but if not how can I enable it ?

I have postfix as MTA

[teward]

If you haven’t changed your system’s environment and disabled the standard shell loading scripts, it’s already enabled.

The way to test this would be to have some process send your user@localhost a message while you are disconnected (via a cronjob or an anacron process or similar) that sends an email message via the MTA and delivers to your local user mailbox. That will make that message pop up.

However, unless you have a message to view, that notification won’t come up, even if you have the features enabled (which they are even in a minimal Ubuntu install).

[matt-rw]

Check /etc/pam.d/login : there are some options in there, I believe.

[klatls]

I viewed that file but, it is enabled

That file refers to /etc/login.defs ; in this file I changed

MAIL_DIR        /var/mail
with
MAIL_DIR        ~/Maildir/new

but it did not solved

[matt-rw]

Hmm. I’m not sure what needs to be done, but your MAIL_DIR define looks wrong to me: ~ does not ordinarily appear in system files.

[deleted] : examples I see on the net indicate mail ends up in a file /var/mail/klatls

[klatls]

The file /etc/login.defs is a system wide file

I cannot set a specific user’s home, setting ‘~’ means all users’s home

second point I use Maildir not mbox so emails are delivered to ~/Maildir

Anyway … I displayed the $MAIL variable on my ubuntu client and it is

/home/myuser/Maildir

or for root

/root/Maildir

so I set it in the ssh users’s server .bashrc

export MAIL=/home/myuser/Maildir

and this solved