Authentication With PAM

SUSE Manager supports network-based authentication systems using pluggable authentication modules (PAM). PAM is a suite of libraries that allows you to integrate SUSE Manager with a centralized authentication mechanism, eliminating the need to remember multiple passwords. SUSE Manager supports LDAP, Kerberos, and other network-based authentication systems using PAM.

Procedure: Enabling PAM

  1. Create a PAM service file at /etc/pam.d/susemanager. Filename must be in lower case and readable by tomcat user. This file is used by SUSE Manager to load the correct PAM configuration files:

    #%PAM-1.0
auth     include        common-auth
account  include        common-account
password include        common-password
session  include        common-session
    Listing 1.  On the SUSE Manager Server, at the command prompt, as root, add the sss PAM module:
    pam-config -a --sss

    This command adds the module to the /etc/pam.d/common-auth configuration file. We do not recommend editing this file directly.

  2. Enforce the use of the service file by adding this line to /etc/rhn/rhn.conf:

    pam_auth_service = susemanager

    In this example, the PAM service file is called susemanager.

  3. Restart the SUSE Manager services after a configuration change.

  4. In the SUSE Manager Web UI, navigate to Users  Create User and enable a new or existing user to authenticate with PAM.

  5. Check the Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM) checkbox. It is below the password and password confirmation fields.

Changing the password in the SUSE Manager Web UI changes only the local password on the SUSE Manager Server. If PAM is enabled for that user, the local password might not be used at all. In the above example, for instance, the Kerberos password is not changed. Use the password change mechanism of your network service to change the password for these users.

To configure system-wide authentication you can use YaST. You need to install the yast2-auth-client package.

For more information about configuring PAM, the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server Security Guide contains a generic example that also works for other network-based authentication methods. It also describes how to configure an active directory service. For more information, see https://documentation.suse.com/sles/15-SP4/html/SLES-all/part-auth.html.