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README for pam_console
======================

NOTE: This software is very powerful.  Incautious use could leave your
system open to attack, or difficult to use.

pam_console is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Because pam_console integrates GPL-licensed code, all of pam_console
is licensed only under the GPL, unlike most PAM modules.  See the
file COPYING for the license terms under which this software is
licensed.

(If this software breaks your system, you get to keep all the pieces.)

The pam_console module exists to change file permissions when users
log on at the console, and to change them back when they log out of
the console.  It also cooperates with the pam_listfile module to
make it possible to allow users who are at the console to run
various programs that would otherwise be restricted to root only.

The pam_console.8 and pam_console_apply.8 man pages explain this
software in more detail.

Please note: the current version depends on too many external tools
and libraries, making it big and hard to evaluate for security.
This is only a bootstrap stage; I'll be fixing it later.  I'm using
lex/yacc right now so that it is trivial to change the grammar, and
I'm using glib because I didn't want to write my own hashtables
while I was busy thinking about file locking.  Don't report those
as bugs, I'll fix them later once I've ironed out the important
details...

Michael K. Johnson
Red Hat Software, Inc.

Additional note: the current version is improved so that the functionality
of changing the ownership and permissions of the devices is split out
of the pam_console.so module to the pam_console_apply executable,
which is called from the pam_console module when the lock is obtained.
Thus the module doesn't depend on the glib.

Copyright 1999, 2005 Red Hat, Inc.
F1l3 Manager
