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a program use the same Kerberos libraries. Sometimes programs that use
PAM, such as current versions of OpenSSH, also link against Kerberos
directly. If your sshd is linked against one set of Kerberos libraries
and pam-krb5 is linked against a different set of Kerberos libraries,
this will often cause problems (such as segmentation faults, bus errors,
assertions, or other strange behavior). Similar issues apply to the
com_err library or any other library used by both modules and shared
libraries and by the application that loads them. If your OS ships
Kerberos libraries, it's usually best if possible to build all Kerberos
software on the system against those libraries.
IMPLEMENTATION NOTES
The normal sequence of actions taken for a user login is:
pam_authenticate
pam_setcred(PAM_ESTABLISH_CRED)
pam_open_session
pam_acct_mgmt
and then at logout:
pam_close_session
followed by closing the open PAM session. The corresponding pam_sm_*
functions in this module are called when an application calls those
public interface functions. Not all applications call all of those
functions, or in particularly that order, although pam_authenticate is
always first and has to be.
When pam_authenticate is called, pam-krb5 creates a temporary ticket
cache in /tmp and sets the PAM environment variable PAM_KRB5CCNAME to
point to it. This ticket cache will be automatically destroyed when the
PAM session is closed and is there only to pass the initial credentials
to the call to pam_setcred. The module would use a memory cache, but
memory caches will only work if the application preserves the PAM
environment between the calls to pam_authenticate and pam_setcred. Most
do, but OpenSSH notoriously does not and calls pam_authenticate in a
subprocess, so this method is used to pass the tickets to the
pam_setcred call in a different process.
pam_authenticate does a complete authentication, including checking the
resulting TGT by obtaining a service ticket for the local host if
possible, but this requires read access to the system keytab. If the
keytab doesn't exist, can't be read, or doesn't include the appropriate
credentials, the default is to accept the authentication. This can be
controlled by setting verify_ap_req_nofail to true in [libdefaults] in
/etc/krb5.conf. pam_authenticate also does a basic authorization check,
by default calling krb5_kuserok (which uses ~/.k5login if available and
falls back to checking that the principal corresponds to the account
name). This can be customized with several options documented in the
pam_krb5(5) man page.
pam-krb5 treats pam_open_session and pam_setcred(PAM_ESTABLISH_CRED) as
synonymous, as some applications call one and some call the other. Both
copy the initial credentials from the temporary cache into a permanent
cache for this session and set KRB5CCNAME in the environment. It will
remember when the credential cache has been established and then avoid
doing any duplicate work afterwards, since some applications call
pam_setcred or pam_open_session multiple times (most notably X.Org 7 and
earlier xdm, which also throws away the module settings the last time it
calls them).
pam_acct_mgmt finds the ticket cache, reads it in to obtain the
authenticated principal, and then does is another authorization check
against .k5login or the local account name as described above.
After the call to pam_setcred or pam_open_session, the ticket cache will
be destroyed whenever the calling application either destroys the PAM
environment or calls pam_close_session, which it should do on user
logout.
The normal sequence of events when refreshing a ticket cache (such as
inside a screensaver) is:
pam_authenticate
pam_setcred(PAM_REINITIALIZE_CRED)
pam_acct_mgmt
(PAM_REFRESH_CRED may be used instead.) Authentication proceeds as
above. At the pam_setcred stage, rather than creating a new ticket
cache, the module instead finds the current ticket cache (from the
KRB5CCNAME environment variable or the default ticket cache location
from the Kerberos library) and then reinitializes it with the
credentials from the temporary pam_authenticate ticket cache. When
refreshing a ticket cache, the application should not open a session.
Calling pam_acct_mgmt is optional; pam-krb5 doesn't do anything
different when it's called in this case.
If pam_authenticate apparently didn't succeed, or if an account was
configured to be ignored via ignore_root or minimum_uid, pam_setcred
(and therefore pam_open_session) and pam_acct_mgmt return PAM_IGNORE,
which tells the PAM library to proceed as if that module wasn't listed
in the PAM configuration at all. pam_authenticate, however, returns
failure in the ignored user case by default, since otherwise a
configuration using ignore_root with pam-krb5 as the only PAM module
would allow anyone to log in as root without a password. There doesn't
appear to be a case where returning PAM_IGNORE instead would improve the
module's behavior, but if you know of a case, please let me know.
By default, pam_authenticate intentionally does not follow the PAM
standard for handling expired accounts and instead returns failure from
pam_authenticate unless the Kerberos libraries are able to change the
account password during authentication. Too many applications either do
not call pam_acct_mgmt or ignore its exit status. The fully correct PAM
behavior (returning success from pam_authenticate and
PAM_NEW_AUTHTOK_REQD from pam_acct_mgmt) can be enabled with the
defer_pwchange option.
The defer_pwchange option is unfortunately somewhat tricky to implement.
In this case, the calling sequence is:
pam_authenticate
pam_acct_mgmt
pam_chauthtok
pam_setcred
pam_open_session
During the first pam_authenticate, we can't obtain credentials and
therefore a ticket cache since the password is expired. But
pam_authenticate isn't called again after pam_chauthtok, so
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