From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org ([208.92.234.80] helo=lists.gentoo.org) by finch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1NXiI6-0006X8-Hr for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Wed, 20 Jan 2010 21:40:42 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id A07AEE09D8; Wed, 20 Jan 2010 21:40:02 +0000 (UTC) Received: from smtp.gentoo.org (smtp.gentoo.org [140.211.166.183]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7B0FCE09D8 for ; Wed, 20 Jan 2010 21:40:02 +0000 (UTC) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by smtp.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 177301B4006 for ; Wed, 20 Jan 2010 21:40:02 +0000 (UTC) X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at gentoo.org X-Spam-Score: -3.01 X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-3.01 required=5.5 tests=[AWL=-0.411, BAYES_00=-2.599] Received: from smtp.gentoo.org ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (smtp.gentoo.org [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id SehNOGylXRgg for ; Wed, 20 Jan 2010 21:39:55 +0000 (UTC) Received: from lo.gmane.org (lo.gmane.org [80.91.229.12]) (using TLSv1 with cipher AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by smtp.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3B6021B40AD for ; Wed, 20 Jan 2010 21:39:54 +0000 (UTC) Received: from list by lo.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.50) id 1NXiHB-0001UQ-Dy for gentoo-user@gentoo.org; Wed, 20 Jan 2010 22:39:45 +0100 Received: from adsl-69-234-187-10.dsl.irvnca.pacbell.net ([69.234.187.10]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Wed, 20 Jan 2010 22:39:45 +0100 Received: from w41ter by adsl-69-234-187-10.dsl.irvnca.pacbell.net with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Wed, 20 Jan 2010 22:39:45 +0100 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org From: walt Subject: [gentoo-user] Re: A quick test of su [SOLVED] Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2010 13:39:15 -0800 Message-ID: References: Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: adsl-69-234-187-10.dsl.irvnca.pacbell.net User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.3a1pre) Gecko/20100120 Thunderbird/3.2a1pre In-Reply-To: Sender: news X-Archives-Salt: 3d095503-4443-4475-bd4c-72a27887a176 X-Archives-Hash: 7c0e5c1f10f22b6287da8dcb739d5e7c On 01/19/2010 10:26 AM, Nikos Chantziaras wrote: > On 01/19/2010 07:55 PM, walt wrote: >> On 01/18/2010 04:41 PM, walt wrote: >> >>> Here is what I see on both machines: >>> >>> $su >>> Password: <===== I type Ctrl-d here >>> Segmentation fault >>> >>> I've traced this problem to the pam_ssh package, which is supposed >>> to return a charstring containing the typed password, but it instead >>> returns a null pointer when I type Ctrl-d. Calamity ensues. >> >> The key here is the pam_ssh package, which apparently the rest of you >> don't use for authentication. > > Just a quick question: what do you need PAM for? No it's not a rhetorical question. I always wondered what PAM is good for; to find out, I completely removed everything PAM related from my system ("-pam" in make.conf and then rebuild everything and then > depclean.) The system works exactly the same as before. So I'm left wondering what PAM was doing in the first place? I'm no expert on PAM, but I've seen it used on every linux distribution that I've tried over the years. In the case I just described, I used it so I can identify myself with my ssh key, which is much more secure than a password. So, in general, pam is used to set security policy for how users can log in, change their passwords, etc. I'm not sure how I would have added ssh key authentication without pam. It's a good question.