TACPLUS.CONF(5)

🌸 NAME 🌸

okay bestie, welcome to TACPLUS.CONF(5) — the File Formats Manual page for tacplus.conf, aka the TACACS+ client configuration file. 💖

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

/etc/tacplus.conf

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

tacplus.conf has all the info needed to configure the TACACS+ client library. It is parsed by tac_config() — see libtacplus(3) for that one. The file contains one or more lines of text, and each line describes a single TACACS+ server that the library is supposed to use. Leading white space is ignored, just like empty lines and lines containing only comments. 🫶

A TACACS+ server is described by a minimum of two fields on a line. The fields are separated by whitespace and follow the same rules for comments, quoting, escaping, and line continuation as the POSIX shell. iykyk. 😌

• First field — server host — this specifies the server host, either as a fully qualified domain name or as a dotted-quad IP address. The host may optionally be followed by a : and a numeric port number, without intervening white space. If the port specification is omitted, it defaults to 49, the standard TACACS+ port. 🌐
• Second field — shared secret — this is the shared secret, and it should be known only to the client and server hosts. It is an arbitrary string of characters, though it must be enclosed in double quotes if it contains white space or is empty. 🔐

⚠️ bestie, an empty secret disables the normal encryption mechanism, causing all data to cross the network in cleartext. That is a whole yikes. 😭

• Optional third field — timeout — may contain a decimal integer specifying the timeout in seconds for communicating with the server. The timeout applies separately to each connect, write, and read operation. If this field is omitted, it defaults to 3 seconds. ⏱️
• Optional fourth field — single-connection — may contain the string single-connection. If this option is included, the library will attempt to negotiate with the server to keep the TCP connection open for multiple sessions. Some older TACACS+ servers become confused if this option is specified. 🙈
• Any subsequent fields — must be of the form attribute=value and will be appended to authorization responses as if they had been sent by the server. 🎀

Up to 10 TACACS+ servers may be specified. The servers are tried in order, until a valid response is received or the list is exhausted. slay. 👑

The standard location for this file is /etc/tacplus.conf. An alternate pathname may be specified in the call to tac_config() (see libtacplus(3)). Since the file contains sensitive information in the form of the shared secrets, it should not be readable except by root.

🔒 so yeah — root-only readability, no cap. this file is carrying sensitive shared secrets. 💅

🎀 FILES 🎀

• /etc/tacplus.conf

🔥 EXAMPLES 🔥

here are the examples, bestie — keep the commands and comments exactly as they are: ✨

# A simple entry using all the defaults:
tacserver.domain.com    OurLittleSecret

# A server using a non-standard port, with an increased timeout and
# the "single-connection" option, and overrides for the for uid, gid
# and shell attributes.
auth.domain.com:4333    "Don't tell!!"  15      single-connection \
    uid=1001 gid=20 shell="/usr/local/bin/zsh"

# A server specified by its IP address:
192.168.27.81           $X*#..38947ax-+=        shell="/sbin/nologin"

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

• libtacplus(3)

👑 AUTHORS 👑

This documentation was written by John Polstra, and donated to the FreeBSD project by Juniper Networks, Inc.

💖 this Debian edition of the tacplus.conf(5) page is dated June 13, 2023 — mwah 💖