Pluggable authentication modules (PAM) provide system entry applications with authentication and related security services. This chapter is intended for developers of system entry applications who wish to provide authentication, account management, session management, and password management through PAM modules. There is also information for designers of PAM service modules.
This chapter covers the following topics:
PAM was originally developed at Sun Microsystems. The PAM specification has sincebeen submitted to X/Open, which is now the Open Group. The PAM specificationis available inX/Open Single Sign-On Service (XSSO) - PluggableAuthentication, Open Group, UK ISBN 1-85912-144-6 June 1997. The Oracle Solaris implementation of PAM is described in thepam(3PAM),libpam(3LIB), andpam_sm(3PAM) man pages.