User Authentication HOWTO
Peter Hernberg
Floris Lambrechts - Language changes, various small fixes (v0.8).
2000-05-02
Revision History
Revision 0.8 2003-02-20 Revised by: fl
language changes, various small fixes
Revision 0.5 2000-05-15 Revised by: ph
added section on securing pam, added resources section
Revision 0.1 2000-05-02 Revised by: ph
initial version
Explains how user and group information is stored and how users are
authenticated on a Linux system (PAM), and how to secure you system's user
authentication.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction
1.1. How this document came to be
1.2. New versions
1.3. Feedback
1.4. Copyrights and Trademarks
1.5. Acknowledgements and Thanks
1.6. Assumptions about the reader
2. How User Information is Stored on Your System
2.1. /etc/passwd
2.2. Shadow passwords
2.3. /etc/group and /etc/gshadow
2.4. MD5 encrypted passwords
2.5. Sifting through the mess
3. PAM (Pluggable Authentication Modules)
3.1. Why
3.2. What
3.3. How
3.4. Getting more information
4. Securing User Authentication
4.1. A strong /etc/pam.d/other
4.2. Disabling logins for user with null passwords
4.3. Disable unused services
4.4. Password-cracking tools
4.5. Shadow and MD5 passwords
5. Tying it all together
5.1. Apache + mod_auth_pam
5.2. Our example
5.3. Installing mod_auth_pam
5.4. Configuring PAM
5.5. Configuring Apache
5.6. Testing our setup
6. Resources
6.1. PAM
6.2. General Security
6.3. Offline Documentation
7. Conclusion
1. Introduction
1.1. How this document came to be
When trying to add a number of (mostly unnecessary :) network services to my
existing home network, I kept running into the problem of authentication, so
I decided to figure out how authentication works on linux systems, write a
HOWTO, and call it my senior project. I hope this document helps you
understand this often-forgotten, but very important, aspect of system
administration.
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1.2. New versions
Unitl I get my domain up and running properly, the newest version of this
document will be available from http://www.linuxdoc.org/.
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1.3. Feedback
Comments, corrections, suggestions, flames, and flying saucer sightings can
be sent to petehern@yahoo.com.
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1.4. Copyrights and Trademarks
(c) 2000 Peter Hernberg
This manual may be reproduced in whole or in part, without fee, subject to
the following restrictions:
* The copyright notice above and this permission notice must be preserved
complete on all complete or partial copies
* Any translation or derived work must be approved by the author in writing
before distribution.
* If you distribute this work in part, instructions for obtaining the
complete version of this manual must be included, and a means for
obtaining a complete version provided.
* Small portions may be reproduced as illustrations for reviews or quotes
in other works without this permission notice if proper citation is
given. Exceptions to these rules may be granted for academic purposes:
Write to the author and ask. These restrictions are here to protect us as
authors, not to restrict you as learners and educators. Any source code
(aside from the SGML this document was written in) in this document is
placed under the GNU General Public License, available via anonymous FTP
from the GNU archive.
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1.5. Acknowledgements and Thanks
Thanks to my family for putting up with me for 18 years. Thanks to the Debian
folks for making such a sweet distro for me to play with. Thanks to [http://
www.cgr.org/] CGR for paying me to be a geek. Thanks to Sandy Harris for his
helpful suggestions. Finally, I'd like thank the makers of ramen noodles,
because I don't know how I'd live without them.
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1.6. Assumptions about the reader
For the purpose of this document, it is assumed that the reader is
comfortably with executing commands at the command line and editing text
configuration files.
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2. How User Information is Stored on Your System
2.1. /etc/passwd
On almost all linux distributions (and commercial *nixes as well), user
information is stored in /etc/passwd, a text file which contains the user's
login, their encrypted password, a unique numerical user id (called the uid),
a numerical group id (called the gid), an optional comment field (usually
containing such items as their real name, phone number, etc.), their home
directory, and their preferred shell. A typical entry in /etc/passwd looks
something like this:
pete:K3xcO1Qnx8LFN:1000:1000:Peter Hernberg,,,1-800-FOOBAR:/home/pete:/bin/bash
As you can see, it's pretty straight-forward. Each entry contains the six
fields I described above, with each field separated by a colon. If this were
as complex as user authentication got, there would be no need for this HOWTO.
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2.2. Shadow passwords
Looking at your /etc/passwd, it's likely that you actually saw something like
this:
pete:x:1000:1000:Peter Hernberg,,,1-800-FOOBAR:/home/pete:/bin/bash
Where did the encrypted password go? Before I tell you where it went, a bit
explanation is required.
The /etc/passwd file, which contains information about all users, including
their encrypted password, is readable by all users, making it possible for
any user to get the encrypted password of everyone on the system. Though the
passwords are encrypted, password-cracking programs are widely available. To
combat this growing security threat, shadow passwords were developed.
When a system has shadow passwords enabled, the password field in /etc/passwd
is replaced by an "x" and the user's real encrypted password is stored in /
etc/shadow. Because /etc/shadow is only readable by the root user, malicious
users cannot crack their fellow users' passwords. Each entry in /etc/shadow
contains the user's login, their encrypted password, and a number of fields
relating to password expiration. A typical entry looks like this:
pete:/3GJllg1o4152:11009:0:99999:7:::
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2.3. /etc/group and /etc/gshadow
Group information is stored in /etc/group. The format is similar to that of /
etc/passwd, with the entries containing fields for the group name, password,
numerical id (gid), and a comma-separated list of group members. An entry in
/etc/group looks like this:
pasta:x:103:spagetti,fettucini,linguine,vermicelli
As you can see from the "x" in the password field, group passwords can be
shadowed as well. Although groups almost never have their own passwords, it
is worth noting that shadowed group password information is stored in /etc/
gshadow.
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2.4. MD5 encrypted passwords
Traditionally, unix passwords were encrypted with the standard crypt()
function. (For more information on the crypt() function, see the crypt(3)
manpage.) As computers grew faster, passwords encrypted with this function
became easier to crack. As the internet emerged, tools for distributing the
task of password-cracking across multiple hosts became available. Many
'newer' distributions ship with the option of encrypting passwords with the
stronger MD5 hash algorithm. (For more information on the MD5 hash algorithm,
consult RFC 1321.) While MD5 passwords will not eliminate the threat of
password cracking, they will make cracking your passwords much more
difficult.
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2.5. Sifting through the mess
As you can see, there are a number of different ways user authentication
information can be stored on your system (shadow passwords without MD5
encryption, /etc/passwd passwords with MD5 encryption, etc.). How do programs
like login and su know how to verify your password? Worse yet, what if you
wanted to change the way passwords are stored on your system? How will
programs that need your password know that passwords are stored differently?
PAM is the answer.
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3. PAM (Pluggable Authentication Modules)
Pluggable authentication modules are at the core of user authentication in
any modern linux distribution.
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3.1. Why
Back in the good old days of linux, if a program, such as su, passwd, login,
or xlock, needed to authenticate a user, it would simply read the necessary
information from /etc/passwd. If it needed to change the users' password, it
would simply edit /etc/passwd. This simple but clumsy method presented
numerous problems for system administrators and application developers. As
MD5 and shadow passwords became increasingly popular, each program requiring
user authentication had to know how to get the proper information when
dealing with a number of different schemes. If you wanted to change your user
authentication scheme, all these programs had to be recompiled. PAM
eliminates this mess by enabling programs to transparently authenticate
users, regardless of how user information is stored.
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3.2. What
Quoting from the [http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/libs/pam/Linux-PAM-html/
pam.html] Linux-PAM System Administrator's Guide: "It is the purpose of the
Linux-PAM project to separate the development of privilege granting software
from the development of secure and appropriate authentication schemes. This
is accomplished by providing a library of functions that an application may
use to request that a user be authenticated." With PAM, it doesn't matter
whether your password is stored in /etc/passwd or on a server in Hong Kong.
When a program needs to authenticate a user, PAM provides a library
containing the functions for the proper authentication scheme. Because this
library is loaded dynamically, changing authentication schemes can be done by
simply editing a configuration file.
Flexibility is one of PAM's greatest strengths. PAM can be configured to deny
certain programs the right to authenticate users, to only allow certain users
to be authenticated, to warn when certain programs attempt to authenticate,
or even to deprive all users of login privileges. PAM's modular design gives
you complete control over how users are authenticated.
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3.2.1. Distributions that support pam.
Nearly all popular distributions have supported PAM for some time. Here's an
incomplete list of distributions that support PAM:
* Redhat since version 5.0
* Mandrake since 5.2
* Debian since version 2.1 (partial support in 2.1 -- complete support in
2.2)
* Caldera since version 1.3
* Turbolinux since version 3.6
* SuSE since version 6.2
This list is certainly incomplete and possibly inaccurate. I'd appreciate it
if you sent any corrections or additions to this list to <petehern@yahoo.com
>.
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3.2.2. Installing PAM
Installing PAM from scratch is long process, beyond the scope of this HOWTO.
If PAM isn't installed on your system, you're probably running such an old
version of your distribution that there are many other reasons to upgrade. If
you really want to do it yourself, then you're certainly not the sort of
person who needs any help from me. For all these reasons, I'm going to assume
that you already have PAM installed.
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3.3. How
Enough talk, let's dig in.
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3.3.1. PAM configuration files
PAM configuration files are stored in the /etc/pam.d/ directory. (If you
don't have /etc/pam.d/ directory, don't worry, I'll cover that in the next
section) Let's go over there and take a look.
~$ cd /etc/pam.d
/etc/pam.d/$ ls
chfn chsh login other passwd su xlock
/etc/pam.d/$
Your system may have a few more or a few less files in this directory,
depending on what's installed on your system. Whatever the details, you
probably saw a file for each of the programs on your system that authenticate
users. As you probably already guessed, each file contains the PAM
authentication configuration for the program it's named after (except for the
other file, which we'll talk about in a little bit). Let's take a look the
PAM configuration file for login (I've condensed the file for the sake of
simplicity):
/etc/pam.d/$ cat login
# PAM configuration for login
auth requisite pam_securetty.so
auth required pam_nologin.so
auth required pam_env.so
auth required pam_unix.so nullok
account required pam_unix.so
session required pam_unix.so
session optional pam_lastlog.so
password required pam_unix.so nullok obscure min=4 max=8
Before I dig into this file, I must mention a little something.
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3.3.2. A little something
A small percentage of the readers are probably thinking, "Oh no! I don't have
a /etc/pam.d directory! Your list of distributions says that my distribution
includes PAM, but I can't find that directory. Without PAM, my life is empty
and meaningless! What can I do?" Don't worry, all is not lost. If you know
that your distribution includes PAM, but you have no /etc/pam.d/ directory,
then your PAM configuration is stored in /etc/pam.conf. Rather than being
spread across several files, all your PAM configuration is stored in a single
file. This adds a little twist to PAM configuration, but the proper
adjustments are pointed out in section 3.3.4.
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3.3.3. Configuration syntax
PAM configuration files have the following syntax:
type control module-path module-arguments
Using the login configuration file (see above) as an example let's take a
look a the syntax for PAM configuration files:
PAM configuration tokens
type
The type token tells PAM what type of authentication is to be used for
this module. Modules of the same type can be "stacked", requiring a user
to meet multiple requirements to be authenticated. PAM recognizes four
types:
account
Determines whether the user is allowed to access the service, whether
their passwords has expired, etc.
auth
Determines whether the user is who they claim to be, usually by a
password, but perhaps by a more sophistcated means, such as
biometrics.
password
Provides a mechanism for the user to change their authentication.
Again, this usually their password.
session
Things that should be done before and/or after the user is
authenticed. This might included things such as mounting/unmounting
the user home directory, logging their login/logout, and restricting/
unrestricting the services available to the user.
In the login config file, we see at least one entry for each type. Since
this the program that allows user to login (hence the name :), it's
understandable that it needs to access all of the different types of
authentication.
control
The control token tells PAM what should be done in if authentication by
this module fails. PAM recognizes four control types:
requisite
Failure to authenticate via this module results in immediate denial
of authentication.
required
Failure also results in denial of authentication, although PAM will
still call all the other modules listed for this service before
denying authentication.
sufficient
If authentication by this module is successful, PAM will grant
authentication, even if a previous required module failed.
optional
Whether this module succeeds or fails is only significant if it is
the only module of its type for this service.
In the configuration file for login, we see nearly all of the different
control types. Most of the required modules are pam_unix.so (the main
authentication module), the single requisite module is pam_securetty.so
(which makes sure the user is logging in on a secure console), and the
only optional module is pam_lastlog.so (the module that retrieves
information on the user's most recent login).
module-path
The module-path tells PAM which module to use and (optionally) where to
find it. Most configurations only contain the module's name, as is the
case in our login configuration file. When this is the case, PAM looks
for the modules in the default PAM module directory, normally /usr/lib/
security. However, if your linux distribution conforms to the Filesystem
Hierarchy Standard (FHS), PAM modules can be found in /lib/security.
module-arguments
The module-arguments are arguments to be passed to the module. Each
module has its own arguments. For example, in our login configuration,
the "nulok" ("null ok", argument being passed to pam_unix.so module,
indicating the a blank ("null") password is acceptable ("ok").
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3.3.4. pam.conf configuration
If your PAM configuration is stored in /etc/pam.conf rather than /etc/pam.d/,
PAM configuration lines are a bit different. Rather than each service having
its own configuration file, all configurations are stored in /etc/pam.conf
with the service name as the first token in a configuration line. For
example, the following line in /etc/pam.d/login:
auth required pam_unix.so nulok
would become the following line in /etc/pam.conf:
login auth required pam_unix.so nulok
Except for this minor difference, all the rest of the configuration PAM
syntax applies.
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3.4. Getting more information
For more information on configuring PAM and complete PAM module reference,
consult the [http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/libs/pam/Linux-PAM-html/
pam.html] Linux-PAM System Administrator's Guide. This guide serves as a
thorough and up-to-date reference on PAM configuration.
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4. Securing User Authentication
Many linux distributions ship with user authentication that is not adequately
secure. This section discusses some of the ways you make user authentication
secure on your system. While doing these things will make your system more
secure, do not be so naive as to think they make you invulnerable.
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4.1. A strong /etc/pam.d/other
All of the files in /etc/pam.d/ contain the configuration for a particular
service. The notable exception to this rule is the /etc/pam.d/other file.
This file contains the configuration for any services which do not have their
own configuration file. For example, if the (imaginary) xyz service attempted
authentication, PAM would look for a /etc/pam.d/xyz file. Not finding one,
authentication for xyz would be determined by the /etc/pam.d/other file.
Since /etc/pam.d/other is the configuration to which PAM services fallback,
it is important that it is secure. We will discuss two secure configurations
of /etc/pam.d/other, one which is quite nearly paranoid and one which is
gentler.
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4.1.1. A paranoid configuration
A paranoid configuration of /etc/pam.d/other is as follows:
auth required pam_deny.so
auth required pam_warn.so
account required pam_deny.so
account required pam_warn.so
password required pam_deny.so
password required pam_warn.so
session required pam_deny.so
session required pam_warn.so
With this configuration, whenever an unknown service attempts to access any
of the four configuration types, PAM denies authentication (via the
pam_deny.so module) and then logs a syslog warning (via the pam_warn.so
module). Short of a bug in PAM, this configuration is brutally secure. The
only problem with that brutality is it may cause problems if your
accidentally delete the configuration of another service. If your /etc/pam.d/
login was mistakenly deleted, no one would be able to login!
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4.1.2. A kinder configuration
Here's configuration that isn't quite so mean:
auth required pam_unix.so
auth required pam_warn.so
account required pam_unix.so
account required pam_warn.so
password required pam_deny.so
password required pam_warn.so
session required pam_unix.so
session required pam_warn.so
This configuration will allow an unknown service to authenticate (via the
pam_unix.so module), although it will not allow it to change the user's
password. Although it allows authentication by unknown services, it logs a
syslog warning whenever such a service attempts authentication.
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4.1.3. Choosing a /etc/pam.d/other
I would strongly reccomend that you implement the first /etc/pam.d/other
configuration unless you have a very good reason not to. It always a good
idea to be 'secure by default'. If you ever do need to grant a new service
authentication privileges, you can simply create a PAM configuration file for
that service.
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4.2. Disabling logins for user with null passwords
On most linux systems, there a number of "dummy" user accounts, used to
assign privileges to certain system services like ftp, webservers, and mail
gateways. Having these accounts allows your system to be more secure, because
if these services are compromised, an attacker will only gain the limited
privileges available to the dummy account, rather than the full privileges of
a service running as root. However, allowing these dummy account login
privileges is a security risk, as they usually have blank (null) passwords.
The configuration option that enables null passwords is the "nullok"
module-argument. You'll want to remove this argument from any modules of
'auth' type for services that allow login. This is usually the login service,
but it may also include services like rlogin and ssh. Hence, the following
line in /etc/pam.d/login:
auth required pam_unix.so nullok
should be changed to:
auth required pam_unix.so
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4.3. Disable unused services
Looking at the files in /etc/pam.d/, you'll probably see configuration files
for a number of programs you don't use and maybe even a few you've never
heard of. Although allowing authentication to these services probably won't
open any huge security holes, you're better off denying them authentication.
The best way to disable PAM authentication for these programs is to rename
these files. Not finding the file named after the service requesting
authentication, PAM will fallback to the (hopefully) very secure /etc/pam.d/
other. If you later find that you need one of these programs, you can simply
rename the file to its original name and everything will work as it was
intended.
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4.4. Password-cracking tools
While password-cracking tools can be used by attackers to compromise a
system, they can also be used by system administrators as proactive tool to
ensure the strength of passwords on their system. The two most commonly used
password-cracking tools are "crack" and "John the Ripper". Crack is probably
included in your favorite distribution. John the Ripper can be obtained from
[http://www.false.com/security/john/index.html] http://www.false.com/security
/john/index.html. Run the tools against your password database and you'll
probably be surprised with what they come up with.
Additionally, there is a PAM module which utilizes the crack library to check
the strength of a users password whenever it changed. When this module is
installed, the user can only change their password to one which meets the
minimum password strength.
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4.5. Shadow and MD5 passwords
As was discussed in the first section of this document, Shadow and MD5
passwords can make your system more secure. During the installation
procedure, most modern distributions will ask whether you want to install MD5
and/or Shadow passwords. Unless you have a good reason not to, you should
enable these. The process of converting from non-shadowed/non-MD5 passwords
is a complicated process, and is beyond the scope of this document. The
[http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/Shadow-Password-HOWTO.html] Shadow Password
HOWTO is outdated, but it might be of some help.
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5. Tying it all together
In this section, I'll give a simple example which ought to help tie together
what's in the previous section.
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5.1. Apache + mod_auth_pam
As our example, we'll install and configure mod_auth_pam, an Apache module
that allows you to authenticate users of your webserver using PAM. For the
purpose of this example, I'll assume you have apache installed. If it's not
installed already you should be able find installation packages from your
distributor.
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5.2. Our example
Our goal will be to configure a restricted area of our webserver, a family/
directory, to authenticate users via PAM. This directory contains private
family information, and should only be accessible to members of the user
group family.
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5.3. Installing mod_auth_pam
First, you'll want to download mod_auth_pam from [http://blank.pages.de/pam/
mod_auth_pam/] http://blank.pages.de/pam/mod_auth_pam/. The following
commands will compile mod_auth_pam (you must be logged in as root):
~# tar xzf mod_auth_pam.tar.gz
~# cd mod_auth_pam-1.0a
~/mod_auth_pam-1.0a# make
~/mod_auth_pam-1.0a# make install
If you have any trouble installing the mod_auth_pam module, make sure you've
installed your distribution's apache-dev package. After you've installed
mod_auth_pam, you'll need to restart apache. Apache can usually by restarted
by typing the following command (again, you must be root):
~# /etc/init.d/apache restart
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5.4. Configuring PAM
The PAM configuration for Apache is stored in /etc/pam.d/httpd. The default
configuration (which was installed when you installed mod_auth_pam) is
secure, but it uses a module (pam_pwdb.so) which may not be available on many
systems. (Besides, configuring it from scratch will be fun!) So delete the /
etc/pam.d/httpd file, and start with a fresh one.
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5.4.1. Deciding how to configure PAM
If we're going to configure how PAM deals with Apache's authentication
requests, we need to figure out exactly what we need PAM to check for. First,
we want PAM to make sure the user's password matches their password in the
standard unix password database. This sounds like the 'auth' type and the
pam_unix.so module. We'll want the module's control type to be set to
'required', so authentication will fail without a correct password. Here's
what the first line of our /etc/pam.d/httpd looks like:
auth required pam_unix.so
Secondly, we must make sure that the users account is valid (i.e. their
password has not expired or any such nastiness). This is the 'account' type
and is also provided by the pam_unix.so module. Again, we'll set this
module's control type to 'required'. After adding this line, our /etc/pam.d/
httpd configuration looks like this:
auth required pam_unix.so
account required pam_unix.so
It's not terribly sophisticated, but it does the job. It ought to be a good
start for learning how to configure PAM services.
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5.5. Configuring Apache
Now that PAM is configured to authenticate apache's requests, we'll configure
apache to properly utilize PAM authentication to restrict access to the
family/ directory. To do so, add the following lines to your httpd.conf
(usually stored in /etc/apache/ or /etc/httpd):
<Directory /var/www/family>
AuthPAM_Enabled on
AllowOverride None
AuthName "Family Secrets"
AuthType "basic"
require group family
</Directory>
You may need to replace /var/www/ with the default location of web documents,
which is often /home/httpd/. Wherever that is, you'll need to create the
family directory.
Before we test our setup, I'll take a moment to explain the Apache
configuration you just entered. The <Directory> directive is used to
encapsulate configuration data for this directory. Inside this directive,
we've enabled PAM authentication ("AuthPAM_enabled on"), turned off any
overriding of this configuration ("AllowOverride none"), named this
authentication zone "Family Secrets" ("AuthName "Family Secrets""), set the
http authentication (not the PAM authentication) type to the default
("AuthType "basic""), and required the user group family ("require group
family").
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5.6. Testing our setup
Now that we've got everything setup up properly, it's time to revel in our
success. Fire up your favorite web browser and head over to http://
your-domain/family/ (replacing your-domain with, well, your domain). You are
now an uber-authenticator!
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6. Resources
There are a number of resources, both online and offline, where you can more
information about user authentication. If you know of any resources that
ought to be added to this list, drop me a line at <petehern@yahoo.com>
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6.1. PAM
* [http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/libs/pam/Linux-PAM-html/pam.html]
Linux-PAM System Administrator's Guide
* [http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/libs/pam/Linux-PAM-html/
pam_modules.html] Linux-PAM Module Writer's Manual
* [http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/libs/pam/Linux-PAM-html/
pam_modules.html] Linux-PAM Application Developer's Manual
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6.2. General Security
* [http://www.linuxsecurity.com/] linuxsecurity.com
* [http://www.securitywatch.com] securitywatch.com
* [http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/Security-HOWTO.html] Security HOWTO
* [http://packetstorm.securify.com] Packetstorm
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6.3. Offline Documentation
A lot of information can be gathered from your system's manual pages. The
following are some manpages relating to user authentication. The number in
parentheses refers to the manpage section. To view the passwd(5) manpage, you
would enter man 5 passwd.
* passwd(5)
* crypt(3)
* pam.d(5)
* group(5)
* shadow(5)
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7. Conclusion
I hope you found this HOWTO helpful. If you have any questions, comments, or
suggestions, I'd love to hear from you. You can email me at <
petehern@yahoo.com>.
