PAM_FAILDELAY(8)

📦
version 1.7.3 · 17 versions
, in arch rolling

💅 PAM_FAILDELAY 💅

okay bestie, gather round, because we're talking about pam_faildelay — the little Linux-PAM manual page (section 8, she's a sysadmin girlie) that's literally just here to make failed logins ✨take a minute✨. no cap.

🌸 NAME 🌸

pam_faildelay — change the delay on failure, per-application. yes, per-application, she's customizable like that 💖

🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

pam_faildelay.so [debug] [delay=microseconds]

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

so pam_faildelay is a PAM module and her whole thing is: you can set the delay-on-failure per-application. like, different vibes for different services, iykyk 🦋

and if you don't hand her a delay? she doesn't just make one up, she's not messy like that. she'll go read the value of FAIL_DELAY from /etc/login.defs instead. she's resourceful, she's lowkey iconic 👑

💅 OPTIONS 💅

  • debug — turns on debugging messages, which get sent to syslog. basically she starts journaling 📓✨
  • delay=N — sets the delay on failure to N microseconds. not seconds, bestie, microseconds. we'll get to that 💀

👑 MODULE TYPES PROVIDED 👑

only the auth module type. that's it. she does one thing and she does it well, main character energy fr fr 💜

🌈 RETURN VALUES 🌈

  • PAM_IGNORE — the delay was successfully adjusted. slay, she did it 🎉
  • PAM_SYSTEM_ERR — the specified delay was not valid. she said "not today" 🙈

⭐ EXAMPLES ⭐

here's the moment you've been waiting for. this example sets the delay on failure to 10 seconds:

auth  optional  pam_faildelay.so  delay=10000000

see how it's 10000000 and not 10? that's because the option is in microseconds and there are a million of those in a second. math ate, honestly 🧮🔥 do not put delay=10 and then be shocked that nothing happens, I'm begging 😭

🫶 SEE ALSO 🫶

pam_fail_delay(3), pam.conf(5), pam.d(5), pam(8)

🍓 AUTHOR 🍓

pam_faildelay was written by Darren Tucker <dtucker@zip.com.au>. thank you king, we appreciate you 💖

and that's the whole page, bestie!! this one's from the Linux-PAM Manual, dated 09/27/2026 — so go forth, delay your failures, and stay iconic 💅✨🎀

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