6.1. pam_access - logdaemon style login access control
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## 6.1. pam_access - logdaemon style login access control

`pam_access.so` [ debug ] [ noaudit ] [ nodefgroup ] [ nodns ] [ accessfile=`file` ] [ fieldsep=`sep` ] [ listsep=`sep` ]

### 6.1.1. DESCRIPTION

The pam_access PAM module is mainly for access management. It provides logdaemon style login access control based on login names, host or domain names, internet addresses or network numbers, or on terminal line names, X `$DISPLAY` values, or PAM service names in case of non-networked logins.

By default rules for access management are taken from config file `/etc/security/access.conf` if you don't specify another file. Then individual `*.conf` files from the `/etc/security/access.d/` directory are read. The files are parsed one after another in the order of the system locale. The effect of the individual files is the same as if all the files were concatenated together in the order of parsing. This means that once a pattern is matched in some file no further files are parsed. If a config file is explicitly specified with the `accessfile` option the files in the above directory are not parsed.

By default rules for access management are taken from config file `/etc/security/access.conf` or, if that one is not present, the file `%vendordir%/security/access.conf`. These settings can be overruled by setting in a config file explicitly specified with the `accessfile` option. Then individual `*.conf` files from the `/etc/security/access.d/` and `%vendordir%/security/access.d` directories are read. If `/etc/security/access.d/@filename@.conf` exists, then `%vendordir%/security/access.d/@filename@.conf` will not be used. All `access.d/*.conf` files are sorted by their `@filename@.conf` in lexicographic order regardless of which of the directories they reside in. The effect of the individual files is the same as if all the files were concatenated together in the order of parsing. This means that once a pattern is matched in some file no further files are parsed. If a config file is explicitly specified with the `accessfile` option the files in the above directories are not parsed.

If Linux PAM is compiled with audit support the module will report when it denies access based on origin (host, tty, etc.).

### 6.1.2. DESCRIPTION

The `/etc/security/access.conf` file specifies (`user/group`, `host`), (`user/group`, `network/netmask`), (`user/group`, `tty`), (`user/group`, `X-$DISPLAY-value`), or (`user/group`, `pam-service-name`) combinations for which a login will be either accepted or refused.

When someone logs in, the file `access.conf` is scanned for the first entry that matches the (`user/group`, `host`) or (`user/group`, `network/netmask`) combination, or, in case of non-networked logins, the first entry that matches the (`user/group`, `tty`) combination, or in the case of non-networked logins without a tty, the first entry that matches the (`user/group`, `X-$DISPLAY-value`) or (`user/group`, `pam-service-name/`) combination. The permissions field of that table entry determines whether the login will be accepted or refused.

Each line of the login access control table has three fields separated by a ":" character (colon):

`permission`:`users/groups`:`origins`

The first field, the `permission` field, can be either a "+" character (plus) for access granted or a "-" character (minus) for access denied.

The second field, the `users`/`group` field, should be a list of one or more login names, group names, or ALL (which always matches). To differentiate user entries from group entries, group entries should be written with brackets, e.g. (group).

The third field, the `origins` field, should be a list of one or more tty names (for non-networked logins), X `$DISPLAY` values or PAM service names (for non-networked logins without a tty), host names, domain names (begin with "."), host addresses, internet network numbers (end with "."), internet network addresses with network mask (where network mask can be a decimal number or an internet address also), ALL (which always matches) or LOCAL. The LOCAL keyword matches if and only if pam_get_item(3), when called with an `item_type` of PAM_RHOST, returns `NULL` or an empty string (and therefore the `origins` field is compared against the return value of pam_get_item(3) called with an `item_type` of PAM_TTY or, absent that, PAM_SERVICE).

If supported by the system you can use @netgroupname in host or user patterns. The @@netgroupname syntax is supported in the user pattern only and it makes the local system hostname to be passed to the netgroup match call in addition to the user name. This might not work correctly on some libc implementations causing the match to always fail.

The `EXCEPT` operator makes it possible to write very compact rules.

If the `nodefgroup` is not set, the group file is searched when a name does not match that of the logged-in user. Only groups are matched in which users are explicitly listed. However the PAM module does not look at the primary group id of a user.

The "#" character at start of line (no space at front) can be used to mark this line as a comment line.

### 6.1.3. OPTIONS

accessfile=/path/to/access.conf

  Indicate an alternative `access.conf` style configuration file to override the default. This can be useful when different services need different access lists.

debug

  A lot of debug information is printed with syslog(3).

noaudit

  Do not report logins from disallowed hosts and ttys to the audit subsystem.

nodefgroup

  User tokens which are not enclosed in parentheses will not be matched against the group database. The backwards compatible default is to try the group database match even for tokens not enclosed in parentheses.

nodns

  Do not try to resolve tokens as hostnames, only IPv4 and IPv6 addresses will be resolved. Which means to allow login from a remote host, the IP addresses need to be specified in `access.conf`.

fieldsep=separators

  This option modifies the field separator character that pam_access will recognize when parsing the access configuration file. For example: fieldsep=| will cause the default `:' character to be treated as part of a field value and `|' becomes the field separator. Doing this may be useful in conjunction with a system that wants to use pam_access with X based applications, since the PAM_TTY item is likely to be of the form "hostname:0" which includes a `:' character in its value. But you should not need this.

listsep=separators

  This option modifies the list separator character that pam_access will recognize when parsing the access configuration file. For example: listsep=, will cause the default ` ' (space) and `\t' (tab) characters to be treated as part of a list element value and `,' becomes the only list element separator. Doing this may be useful on a system with group information obtained from a Windows domain, where the default built-in groups "Domain Users", "Domain Admins" contain a space.

### 6.1.4. MODULE TYPES PROVIDED

All module types (`auth`, `account`, `password` and `session`) are provided.

### 6.1.5. RETURN VALUES

PAM_SUCCESS

  Access was granted.

PAM_PERM_DENIED

  Access was not granted.

PAM_IGNORE

  `pam_setcred` was called which does nothing.

PAM_ABORT

  Not all relevant data or options could be gotten.

PAM_USER_UNKNOWN

  The user is not known to the system.

### 6.1.6. FILES

/etc/security/access.conf

  Default configuration file

%vendordir%/security/access.conf

  Default configuration file if `/etc/security/access.conf` does not exist.

### 6.1.7. EXAMPLES

These are some example lines which might be specified in `/etc/security/access.conf`.

User root should be allowed to get access via cron, X11 terminal :0, tty1, ..., tty5, tty6.

+:root:crond :0 tty1 tty2 tty3 tty4 tty5 tty6

User root should be allowed to get access from hosts which own the IPv4 addresses. This does not mean that the connection have to be a IPv4 one, a IPv6 connection from a host with one of this IPv4 addresses does work, too.

+:root:192.168.200.1 192.168.200.4 192.168.200.9

+:root:127.0.0.1

User root should get access from network `192.168.201.` where the term will be evaluated by string matching. But it might be better to use network/netmask instead. The same meaning of `192.168.201.` is 192.168.201.0/24 or 192.168.201.0/255.255.255.0.

+:root:192.168.201.

User root should be able to have access from hosts foo1.bar.org and foo2.bar.org (uses string matching also).

+:root:foo1.bar.org foo2.bar.org

User root should be able to have access from domain foo.bar.org (uses string matching also).

+:root:.foo.bar.org

User root should be denied to get access from all other sources.

-:root:ALL

User foo and members of netgroup admins should be allowed to get access from all sources. This will only work if netgroup service is available.

+:@admins foo:ALL

User john and foo should get access from IPv6 host address.

+:john foo:2001:db8:0:101::1

User john should get access from IPv6 net/mask.

+:john:2001:db8:0:101::/64

Members of group wheel should be allowed to get access from all sources.

+:(wheel):ALL

Disallow console logins to all but the shutdown, sync and all other accounts, which are a member of the wheel group.

-:ALL EXCEPT (wheel) shutdown sync:LOCAL

All other users should be denied to get access from all sources.

-:ALL:ALL

### 6.1.8. AUTHORS

The logdaemon style login access control scheme was designed and implemented by Wietse Venema. The pam_access PAM module was developed by Alexei Nogin <alexei@nogin.dnttm.ru>. The IPv6 support and the network(address) / netmask feature was developed and provided by Mike Becher <mike.becher@lrz-muenchen.de>.

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