Very Computer

by **Mark Hedg** » Sun, 24 May 1998 04:00:00

So, we upgraded to Solaris 2.6 (sparc) and installed the recommended
patches, etc.

in.ftpd (running out of inetd) continuously complains about
/etc/pam.conf.

If /etc/pam.conf is not writable by group (but readable by just root, or
root and group or everybody, or writable by root but not group,
whatever) then it spits out this message when someone quits:

May 23 14:28:57 rigel ftpd[26204]: open_pam_conf: stat(/etc/pam.conf)
failed: No such file or directory

And if /etc/pam.conf is mode 660 or 664 (writable by group) it sees
something different and spits out this message when someone logs in:

May 23 14:30:40 rigel ftpd[26320]: open_pam_conf: /etc/pam.conf writable
by group

but no message when someone quits.

Could someone share their experience with pam? Everything seems to work,
but these messages are annoying. Thanks. Best regards.

Mark Hedges

by **Matt Kirsc** » Wed, 27 May 1998 04:00:00

> So, we upgraded to Solaris 2.6 (sparc) and installed the recommended
> patches, etc.

> in.ftpd (running out of inetd) continuously complains about
> /etc/pam.conf.

> If /etc/pam.conf is not writable by group (but readable by just root,
or
> root and group or everybody, or writable by root but not group,
> whatever) then it spits out this message when someone quits:

According to my research on just-installed Solaris 2.6 systems, the
permissions on /etc/pam.conf should be 644.

> Could someone share their experience with pam? Everything seems to
work,
> but these messages are annoying. Thanks. Best regards.

I don't understand pam or what its purpose is. My first experiences with
it were from RedHat Linux, where it suddenly appeared after an upgrade.
At the time, there was no documentation for it, period. I couldn't find
any on the system, on the CDROM, or even on the Web. Even with the
sparse documentation I've found now, I don't know what purpose it
serves.

by **Steve Bellen** » Wed, 27 May 1998 04:00:00

Quote:>I don't understand pam or what its purpose is. My first experiences with
>it were from RedHat Linux, where it suddenly appeared after an upgrade.
>At the time, there was no documentation for it, period. I couldn't find
>any on the system, on the CDROM, or even on the Web. Even with the
>sparse documentation I've found now, I don't know what purpose it
>serves.

man pam(3) yields PAM = Pluggable Authentication Module. It is way
of giving the administrator more control over the login/authentication
process. PAM is fairly new but has been around is someform or another
since 2.4 (2.3?).
--

by **Frank Peter** » Wed, 27 May 1998 04:00:00

> I don't understand pam or what its purpose is. My first experiences with
> it were from RedHat Linux, where it suddenly appeared after an upgrade.
> At the time, there was no documentation for it, period. I couldn't find
> any on the system, on the CDROM, or even on the Web. Even with the
> sparse documentation I've found now, I don't know what purpose it
> serves.

In the good old days, if you wanted to do a new authentication scheme
such as kerberos, you would need to replace all of the programs
(login, rlogind, su or whatever) that do authentication with versions
that had the different authentication scheme coded into them. This
often lead to confusion. For example, the login that you installed
with kerberos might not support the same feature set as the login
that shipped with the OS. Or an OS security patch might replace your
modified login with a new one that used the standard authentication
scheme.

PAM is the pluggable authentication module and it attempts to resolve
this by allowing you to create dynamically loadable authentication
modules that implement your authentication scheme.

Now to do kerberos you can just create a PAM module that implements
kerberos and list it in the appropriate place in /etc/pam.conf to
arrange for programs to start using it without modifying the programs
themselves.

--
-- Frank Peters Mississippi State University Systems and Networks
-- fwp at net.msstate.edu +1 (601) 325-0741 FAX: +1 (601) 325-8921

by **Vadim Kolonts** » Thu, 28 May 1998 04:00:00

>I don't understand pam or what its purpose is. My first experiences with
>it were from RedHat Linux, where it suddenly appeared after an upgrade.
>At the time, there was no documentation for it, period. I couldn't find
>any on the system, on the CDROM, or even on the Web.

PAM stands for Pluggable Authentication Modules.

http://hoth.stsci.edu/public/pam/ - pointer to Solaris PAM docs.

Regards,
V.
--
Vadim Kolontsov
Tver Internet Center NOC

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