<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2 Final//EN"> <HTML> <HEAD> <META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="SGML-Tools 1.0.9"> <TITLE>The Linux-PAM Application Developers' Guide: Introduction</TITLE> <LINK HREF="pam_appl-2.html" REL=next> <LINK HREF="pam_appl.html#toc1" REL=contents> </HEAD> <BODY> <A HREF="pam_appl-2.html">Next</A> Previous <A HREF="pam_appl.html#toc1">Contents</A> <HR> <H2><A NAME="s1">1. Introduction</A></H2> <H2><A NAME="ss1.1">1.1 Synopsis</A> </H2> <P>For general applications that wish to use the services provided by <B>Linux-PAM</B> the following is a summary of the relevant linking information: <BLOCKQUOTE><CODE> <PRE> #include <security/pam_appl.h> cc -o application .... -lpam -ldl </PRE> </CODE></BLOCKQUOTE> <P> <P>In addition to <CODE>libpam</CODE>, there is a library of miscellaneous functions that make the job of writing <EM>PAM-aware</EM> applications easier (this library is not covered in the DCE-RFC for PAM and is specific to the Linux-PAM distribution): <BLOCKQUOTE><CODE> <PRE> ... #include <security/pam_misc.h> cc -o application .... -lpam -lpam_misc -ldl </PRE> </CODE></BLOCKQUOTE> <P> <H2><A NAME="ss1.2">1.2 Description</A> </H2> <P><B>Linux-PAM</B> (Pluggable Authentication Modules for Linux) is a library that enables the local system administrator to choose how individual applications authenticate users. For an overview of the <B>Linux-PAM</B> library see the <B>Linux-PAM</B> System Administrators' Guide. <P> <P>It is the purpose of the <B>Linux-PAM</B> project to liberate the development of privilege granting software from the development of secure and appropriate authentication schemes. This is accomplished by providing a documented library of functions that an application may use for all forms of user authentication management. This library dynamically loads locally configured authentication modules that actually perform the authentication tasks. <P> <P>From the perspective of an application developer the information contained in the local configuration of the PAM library should not be important. Indeed it is intended that an application treat the functions documented here as a ``black box'' that will deal with all aspects of user authentication. ``All aspects'' includes user verification, account management, session initialization/termination and also the resetting of passwords (<EM>authentication tokens</EM>). <P> <HR> <A HREF="pam_appl-2.html">Next</A> Previous <A HREF="pam_appl.html#toc1">Contents</A> </BODY> </HTML>
