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Date:      Tue, 21 Oct 1997 13:42:33 +0930
From:      Mike Smith <mike@smith.net.au>
To:        Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com>
Cc:        dec@phoenix.its.rpi.edu (David E. Cross), freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: FreeBSD authentication... 
Message-ID:  <199710210412.NAA00457@word.smith.net.au>
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 20 Oct 1997 18:27:21 GMT." <199710201827.LAA09252@usr05.primenet.com> 

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> > Is there any interest (should there be) to mooving to Pluggabl
> > Authentication Modules.  (Since they are implimented as shared libraries,
> > that you link in as needed, would we need to rewrite ld.so a bit to ensure
> > that people couldn't set their LD_LIBRARY_PATH, and then run su to get
> > full root acces, sans password?)
> 
> Have you located a PAM implementation (not necessarily modules, but the
> framework itself) which is under UCB copyright instead of GPL?

The Linux-PAM library is available under a dual (either-or) license.  
Again, please see my page at http://www.smith.net.au/~mike.

There is a working and mostly-functional port of a slightly out-of-date 
version linked off there, and the Linux-PAM people have been very easy 
to work with.  At one point Randy Terbush was attacking the libpwdb 
code (similarly licensed), but I haven't heard from him for some time.  
This module adds significant and useful functionality, but the code is 
Bad.

> User authentication is a system critical function, like the kernel;
> it's unlikely that PAM would be any more acceptable than a GPL'ed
> driver if it's critical to system operation.

The problems with PAM and our current model are more related to the 
current woolly concept of a "session", particularly associating an "end" 
with a "beginning".

mike




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