PAMTESTER(1)

📦 version 0.1.2, in debian bookworm, debian trixie, epel 10, epel 9, fedora 43, fedora 44, nixos 26.05, nixpkgs unstable, ubuntu jammy, ubuntu noble, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

✨ PAMTESTER(1) ✨

okay bestie, gather round, because today we're talking about pamtester — the little command that lets you poke at the pluggable authentication module (PAM) facility and see what it does. 💅 no cap, this is the manual for the pamtester command from the General Commands Manual, and we're gonna get into every single bit of it. 🎀

🌸 NAME 🌸

pamtester — test pluggable authentication module (PAM) facility 🦋

💖 SYNOPSIS 💖

pamtester [-v] [-I item=value] [-E var=value] service user operation
[operation ...]

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

So the whole vibe here is: test pluggable authentication module (PAM) facility. that's it, that's the job. 🫶

service is the PAM service name. user is the name of the user account to operate with the PAM facility. and then there's a list of operations you can throw at it, which we are about to go through one by one because we don't skip. 💯

🔥 The Operations 🔥

  • authenticate — Authenticate user. a conversation may subsequently take place to prompt user input to retrieve necessary authentication information. 💬
  • acct_mgmt — Perform account management on user. a conversation may subsequently take place to prompt user input for necessary authentication information. 🗂️
  • open_session — Open a new session for user. 🚪✨
  • close_session — Close the current session for user. 🚪💀
  • chauthtok — Change the authentication token currently assigned to user. Conversation may subsequently take place to prompt user input for necessary authentication information. 🔑
heads up bestie: some operations may eventually need additional privileges to fulfill the request depending on the service configuration. so like, don't be shocked if it asks for more power. 👑

🎀 Operation Flags 🎀

Any operation may also be followed by the option flags that are provided between the pair of parenthesis. Flags are all named and combinable or inversible with bitwise operators; "|" (OR), "&" (AND), "^" (XOR) and "~" (NOT) are accepted. the way that bitwise operators just work here? iconic. 🌈

authenticate(PAM_SILENT | PAM_DISALLOW_NULL_AUTHTOK)

The list of allowed options is shown below:

  • PAM_SILENT
  • PAM_DISALLOW_NULL_AUTHTOK
  • PAM_ESTABLISH_CRED
  • PAM_REINITIALIZE_CRED
  • PAM_REFRESH_CRED
  • PAM_CHANGE_EXPIRED_AUTHTOK

💜 Extra Auth Info 💜

Additional authentication information such as the name of the remote user, the remote host and the tty can be supplied via -I (--item) option. 🧚

The following types of information are supported:

  • service
  • user
  • prompt
  • tty
  • ruser
  • rhost

🌟 OPTIONS 🌟

  • -v, --verbose — Turn on verbose mode. she's chatty now. 🗣️
  • -I item=value, --item item=value — Provide additional information to authentication module. 📥
  • -E var=value, --env var=value — Set environment variable var to value. 🌱

👑 AUTHOR 👑

Written by Moriyoshi Koizumi <moriyoshi@users.sourceforge.net>. legend behaviour, fr fr. 🙌

🐛 REPORTING BUGS 🐛

Report bugs to <pamtester-bugs@lists.sourceforge.net>. please be nice, they're doing their best. 🫶

Copyright © 2004 - 2005 Moriyoshi Koizumi. All rights reserved. 📜

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

  • pam(7) — go read it, iykyk. 📖

and that's the whole page, bestie!! no notes, ate and left no crumbs. this was pamtester version 0.1.2, from March 2005 — yes she's an old queen and she still slays. 💅✨🎀

📦 where this page comes from