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Under GNU General Public License
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PAM(8) Linux-PAM Manual PAM(8)
NAME
PAM, pam - Pluggable Authentication Modules for Linux
DESCRIPTION
This manual is intended to offer a quick introduction to Linux-PAM. For more
information the reader is directed to the Linux-PAM system administrators' guide.
Linux-PAM is a system of libraries that handle the authentication tasks of
applications (services) on the system. The library provides a stable general
interface (Application Programming Interface - API) that privilege granting
programs (such as login(1) and su(1)) defer to to perform standard authentication
tasks.
The principal feature of the PAM approach is that the nature of the authentication
is dynamically configurable. In other words, the system administrator is free to
choose how individual service-providing applications will authenticate users. This
dynamic configuration is set by the contents of the single Linux-PAM configuration
file /etc/pam.conf. Alternatively, the configuration can be set by individual
configuration files located in the /etc/pam.d/ directory. The presence of this
directory will cause Linux-PAM to ignore /etc/pam.conf.
From the point of view of the system administrator, for whom this manual is
provided, it is not of primary importance to understand the internal behavior of
the Linux-PAM library. The important point to recognize is that the configuration
file(s) define the connection between applications (services) and the pluggable
authentication modules (PAMs) that perform the actual authentication tasks.
Linux-PAM separates the tasks of authentication into four independent management
groups: account management; authentication management; password management; and
session management. (We highlight the abbreviations used for these groups in the
configuration file.)
Simply put, these groups take care of different aspects of a typical user's request
for a restricted service:
account - provide account verification types of service: has the user's password
expired?; is this user permitted access to the requested service?
authentication - authenticate a user and set up user credentials. Typically this is
via some challenge-response request that the user must satisfy: if you are who you
claim to be please enter your password. Not all authentications are of this type,
there exist hardware based authentication schemes (such as the use of smart-cards
and biometric devices), with suitable modules, these may be substituted seamlessly
for more standard approaches to authentication - such is the flexibility of
Linux-PAM.
password - this group's responsibility is the task of updating authentication
mechanisms. Typically, such services are strongly coupled to those of the auth
group. Some authentication mechanisms lend themselves well to being updated with
such a function. Standard UN*X password-based access is the obvious example: please
enter a replacement password.
session - this group of tasks cover things that should be done prior to a service
being given and after it is withdrawn. Such tasks include the maintenance of audit
trails and the mounting of the user's home directory. The session management group
is important as it provides both an opening and closing hook for modules to affect
the services available to a user.
FILES
/etc/pam.conf
the configuration file
/etc/pam.d
the Linux-PAM configuration directory. Generally, if this directory is present,
the /etc/pam.conf file is ignored.
ERRORS
Typically errors generated by the Linux-PAM system of libraries, will be written to
syslog(3).
CONFORMING TO
DCE-RFC 86.0, October 1995. Contains additional features, but remains backwardly
compatible with this RFC.
SEE ALSO
pam(3), pam_authenticate(3), pam_sm_setcred(3), pam_strerror(3), PAM(8)
Linux-PAM Manual 06/27/2006 PAM(8)
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Under GNU General Public License
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