Red Hat Certified Engineer Tutorials
Account Security / Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM)
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Subtitles of the Movie (Red Hat Certified Engineer / Account Security / Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM))
Pluggable Authentication Modules, PAM for short, is a fine grained authentication scheme. It's most often used to prompt for the administrative root password, or when trying to run an administrative tool as a regular user. For example, when you try to open the Security Level Configuration tool from a regular account, you're given a prompt for the root password. Once the root password is given, you don't have to give the root password again, if you try to access this administrative tool in the next five minutes. PAM is configured in various files in the etc slash pam dot d directory, and uses modules listed in the lib slash security directory. If you want more information on these modules, look at the read-me files in this directory: user slash share slash dot slash pam dash whatever version number is installed, in this case, 0 dot 99 dot 6 dot 2 slash text. Every line in all PAM configuration files is written in the following format. First, the module type, followed by the control flag, followed by the module, possibly followed by any arguments that might be needed. In a PAM file there are four types of modules that may be configured. Authentication Management uses the auth directive. It establishes the identity of a user. For example, a PAM auth directive can decide whether to prompt for a user name and or a password. Account Management uses the account directive. It allows or denies access according to the account policies. For example, a PAM account directive may deny access according to time, password expiration, or a specific list of restricted users. Password Management can be used to manage password policies. For example, a PAM password directive may limit the number of times a user can try to log in before a console is reset. Session Management applies settings for an application. For example, the PAM session directive may set default settings for a log in console. Next, there are five different kinds of control flags available. The required flag: if the module works, PAM proceeds to the next command in the file. Requisite: if the module is not verified, authentication has failed or considered to have failed, and access is denied. Sufficient: if the module works, the log in or other authentication proceeds. No other commands need be processed, so if anything else fails, after a sufficient line, it doesn't matter. Optional: well, it's almost as a like a comment as PAM ignores the success or failure of any module configured with an optional control flag. And finally, Include: this is used to include directives from another file. For example, a directive such as password includes system dash off, includes all password directives from the PAM configuration file, system off, and the etc slash pam dot d directory. We'll see how this works in the next couple of videos.
Tutorial Information
| Course: | Red Hat Certified Engineer |
| Author: | Michael Jang |
| SKU: | 33845 |
| ISBN: | 1-934743-47-X |
| Release Date: | 2008-01-18 |
| Duration: | 6.5 hrs / 94 lessons |
| Captions: | No |
| Compatibility: |
Vista/XP/2000, OS X, Linux QuickTime 7, Flash 8 |
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