Pluggable Authentication Module (PAM)

The Pluggable Authentication Module (PAM) framework enables you to "plug in" new authentication technologies without changing the login, ftp, or telnet commands. You can also use PAM to integrate UNIX login with other security mechanisms like DCE or Kerberos.

Mechanisms for account, session, and password management can also be plugged in using this framework.

Some of the benefits PAM provides are:

• Flexible configuration policy

• Ease of use for the end user

• The ability to pass optional parameters to the user authentication services

See Chapter 53, Using Authentication Services (Tasks) for more information.