man > PAM-AUTH-UPDATE(8)

PAM-AUTH-UPDATE(8)                     System Manager's Manual                    PAM-AUTH-UPDATE(8)

NAME
       pam-auth-update - manage PAM configuration using packaged profiles

SYNOPSIS
       pam-auth-update  [--package  [--remove  profile  [profile...]]]   [--force] [--enable profile
       [profile...]]  [--disable profile [profile...]]

DESCRIPTION
       pam-auth-update is a utility that permits configuring the central authentication  policy  for
       the  system  using pre-defined profiles as supplied by PAM module packages.  Profiles shipped
       in the /usr/share/pam-configs/ directory specify the modules, with options,  to  enable;  the
       preferred ordering with respect to other profiles; and whether a profile should be enabled by
       default.   Packages  providing PAM modules register their profiles at install time by calling
       pam-auth-update --package.  Selection of profiles is done using the standard  debconf  inter‐
       face.   The  profile  selection question will be asked at `medium' priority when packages are
       added or removed,  so  no  user  interaction  is  required  by  default.   Users  may  invoke
       pam-auth-update directly to change their authentication configuration.

       The script makes every effort to respect local changes to /etc/pam.d/common-*.  Local modifi‐
       cations  to the list of module options will be preserved, and additions of modules within the
       managed portion of the stack will cause pam-auth-update to treat the config files as  locally
       modified and not make further changes to the config files unless given the --force option.

       If  the  user specifies that pam-auth-update should override local configuration changes, the
       locally-modified files will be saved in /etc/pam.d/ with a suffix of .pam-old.

OPTIONS
       --package
              Indicate that the caller is a package maintainer script; lowers the priority  of  deb‐
              conf questions to `medium' so that the user is not prompted by default.

       --disable profile [profile...]
              Disable  the specified profiles in system configuration.  This can be used from system
              administration scripts to disable profiles.

       --enable profile [profile...]
              Enable the specified profiles in system configuration. This is used to enable profiles
              that are not on by default.

       --remove profile [profile...]
              Remove the specified profiles from the system configuration.  pam-auth-update --remove
              should be used to remove profiles from the configuration before the modules they  ref‐
              erence  are  removed from disk, to ensure that PAM is in a consistent and usable state
              at all times during package upgrades or removals.

       --force
              Overwrite the current PAM configuration, without prompting.  This option must  not  be
              used by package maintainer scripts; it is intended for use by administrators only.

FILES
       /etc/pam.d/common-*
           Global configuration of PAM, affecting all installed services.

       /usr/share/pam-configs/
           Package-supplied authentication profiles.

AUTHOR
       Steve Langasek <steve.langasek AT canonical.com>

COPYRIGHT
       Copyright (C) 2008 Canonical Ltd.

SEE ALSO
       PAM(7), pam.d(5), debconf(7)

Debian                                       08/23/2008                           PAM-AUTH-UPDATE(8)