PAM_RHOSTS(8)

📦
version 1.7.3 · 18 versions
, in arch rolling

💖 PAM_RHOSTS — the rhosts PAM module 💖

okay bestie, gather round, we're doing a <rainbow>Linux-PAM manual page</rainbow> today and this one is so old-school it practically smells like a server room. it's the manual page for pam_rhosts from <purple>Linux-PAM</purple>, and yes we're gonna read the whole thing together. no skimming. i will know. 👀

✨ NAME ✨

pam_rhosts — the rhosts PAM module 🎀

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

pam_rhosts.so

that's it. that's the whole synopsis. she's lowkey minimal, she's highkey iconic. 💅

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

okay so this module does the standard network authentication for services — you know, the whole classic vibe used by traditional implementations of rlogin and rsh etc. 🦋

the way this authentication mechanism works is it's based on the contents of two files: /etc/hosts.equiv and ~/.rhosts. let's break it down, bestie:

  • First off, hosts listed in /etc/hosts.equiv are treated as equivalent to the localhost. like, "you're basically us now, come in." 🫶
  • Secondly, entries in the user's own copy of ~/.rhosts are used to map "remote-host remote-user" pairs to that user's account on the current host.

access gets granted to the user if:

  1. their host is present in /etc/hosts.equiv and their remote account is identical to their local one, or
  2. their remote account has an entry in their personal configuration file.

periodt. 💅

now, the module authenticates a remote user (internally specified by the item PAM_RUSER) connecting from the remote host (internally specified by the item PAM_RHOST). and this is the important part, so listen up bestie: for applications to be compatible with this authentication module, they must set these items prior to calling pam_authenticate(). 🚨

not me being dramatic but: the module is not capable of independently probing the network connection for such information. it cannot do that. it will not do that. it's simply not that girl. 🙈

✨ OPTIONS ✨

here's the lil menu of things you can pass her, ngl it's a short one and we love that for her:

  • debug — Print debug information. (she's telling you everything, oversharing era 💀)
  • silent — Don't print informative messages. (the opposite vibe, mysterious, quiet, lowkey 🎀)
  • superuser=account — Handle account as root. 👑

✨ MODULE TYPES PROVIDED ✨

Only the auth module type is provided. one type. that's the whole roster. she's specialized, she's focused, she's not trying to be everything to everyone. 🌸

✨ RETURN VALUES ✨

here's what she can hand back to you when things go sideways:

  • PAM_AUTH_ERR — The remote host, remote user name or the local user name couldn't be determined, or access was denied by the .rhosts file. 😭 (something's missing or you got told no)
  • PAM_USER_UNKNOWN — User is not known to system. 💀 (the system literally does not know this person)

✨ EXAMPLES ✨

okay so say you wanna grant a remote user access by /etc/hosts.equiv or .rhosts for rsh — you'd add the following lines to /etc/pam.d/rsh:

#%PAM-1.0
#
auth     required       pam_rhosts.so
auth     required       pam_nologin.so
auth     required       pam_env.so
auth     required       pam_unix.so

copy it exactly, bestie, don't get creative with the spacing, i'm begging. 🙏

✨ SEE ALSO ✨

go read these next, the girls that read together stay together:

✨ AUTHOR ✨

pam_rhosts was written by Thorsten Kukuk <kukuk@thkukuk.de> — thank you king, we appreciate you 🫶👑

and that's the whole page, bestie!! this was <hotpink>Linux-PAM</hotpink>'s PAM_RHOSTS(8), dated 09/27/2026 — yeah that date is giving time traveler but we don't question the versioning, we just respect it. 🌈✨ mwah, go secure your rsh configs responsibly, ily, bye!! 💖🦋🎀

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