In the handbook's (https://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/using-localization.html#locale-lang-country) section 22.2.1.1. Login Classes Method, we have: Whenever /etc/login.conf is edited, remember to execute the following command to update the capability database: # cap_mkdb /etc/login.conf But in login.conf(5) for FreeBSD 12X we have: The default /etc/login.conf shipped with FreeBSD is an out of the box configuration. Whenever changes to this, or the user's ~/.login_conf, file are made, the modifications will not be picked up until cap_mkdb(1) is used to compile the file into a database. The wording in the handbook can be easily interpreted to imply that cap_mkdb(1) need only be used when /etc/.login_conf is modified. But this is not the case - as can be seen from login.conf(5). I request that the handbook includes that cap_mkdb(1) needs to be used even when ~/.login_conf is modified.
A commit references this bug: Author: trhodes Date: Sun Sep 6 21:06:38 UTC 2020 New revision: 54468 URL: https://svnweb.freebsd.org/changeset/doc/54468 Log: Note to run cap_mkdb on user login_conf files as well. PR: 241412 Changes: head/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/l10n/chapter.xml
A commit references this bug: Author: 0mp Date: Tue Sep 15 20:40:05 UTC 2020 New revision: 54497 URL: https://svnweb.freebsd.org/changeset/doc/54497 Log: Fix a typo after r54468 PR: 241412 Changes: head/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/l10n/chapter.xml
The handbook has been updated. Thanks for the report. Although I am not sure about this change. I've been using ~/.login_conf successfully for a long time without ever running cap_mkdb(1). I think that the manual page is wrong. For example, adding the following to ~/.login_conf sets the environment variable AAA to "123" without having to run cap_mkdb(1): me:\ :setenv=AAA=123: Am I missing something?
login.conf(5) may still need to be changed (it still says cap_mkdb is needed for ~/login.conf) but if so that's a manual pages problem, no longer a handbook problem. (I reset assignee to new default - feel free to grab again.)