CentOS 6.3 and FreeRadius - can't authenticate to Unix

John Dennis jdennis at redhat.com
Tue Oct 30 13:36:00 CET 2012


On 10/30/2012 03:23 AM, Alan DeKok wrote:
> Fajar A. Nugraha wrote:
>> What's the recommended method for authenticating against Linux system
>> users? I thought pam was the better one?
>
>    Maybe.  getpwent() or getspwent() should work.
>
>> Also, is the "big warning" still valid?
>
>    Likely, yes.  I've been avoiding PAM for nearly a decade now.  It's
> not as bad as libtool, but it's pretty crazy.

FWIW pam is used extensively on Red Hat systems. I'm not aware of any 
glaring problems deserving the recommendation not to use it.

That said I'm no lover of pam, it's not designed well and if it ever got 
replaced I don't think there would be many tears shed. Be that as it may 
it's still central to most system authentication.

John

-- 
John Dennis <jdennis at redhat.com>

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