Additional Resources

The following resources further explain methods to use and configure PAM. In addition to these resources, read the PAM configuration files on the system to better understand how they are structured.

Installed Documentation

PAM-related man pages - Several man pages exist for the various applications and configuration files involved with PAM. The following is a list of some of the more important man pages.

Configuration Files

pam - Good introductory information on PAM, including the structure and purpose of the PAM configuration files.

Note that this man page discusses both /etc/pam.conf and individual configuration files in the /etc/pam.d/ directory. By default, Community Enterprise Linux uses the individual configuration files in the /etc/pam.d/ directory, ignoring /etc/pam.conf even if it exists.

pam_console - Describes the purpose of the pam_console.so module. It also describes the appropriate syntax for an entry within a PAM configuration file.

console.apps - Describes the format and options available in the /etc/security/console.apps configuration file, which defines which applications are accessible by the console user assigned by PAM.
console.perms - Describes the format and options available in the /etc/security/console.perms configuration file, which specifies the console user permissions assigned by PAM.
pam_timestamp - Describes the pam_timestamp.so module.

/usr/share/doc/pam-<version-number> - Contains a System Administrators' Guide, a Module Writers' Manual, and the Application Developers' Manual, as well as a copy of the PAM standard, DCE-RFC 86.0, where <version-number> is the version number of PAM.
/usr/share/doc/pam-<version-number>/txts/README.pam_timestamp - Contains information about the pam_timestamp.so PAM module, where <version-number> is the version number of PAM.

Useful Websites

http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/libs/pam/ - The primary distribution website for the Linux-PAM project, containing information on various PAM modules, a FAQ, and additional PAM documentation.

The documentation in the above website is for the last released upstream version of PAM and might not be 100% accurate for the PAM version included in Community Enterprise Linux.