In response to a call to pam_authenticate(3PAM), the PAM framework calls pam_sm_authenticate() from the modules listed in the pam.conf(4) file. The authentication provider supplies the back-end functionality for this interface function.

The pam_sm_authenticate() function is called to verify the identity of the current user. The user is usually required to enter a password or similar authentication token depending upon the authentication scheme configured within the system. The user in question is specified by a prior call to pam_start(), and is referenced by the authentication handle pamh.

If the user is unknown to the authentication service, the service module should mask this error and continue to prompt the user for a password. It should then return the error, PAM_USER_UNKNOWN.

The following flag may be passed in to pam_sm_authenticate():

PAM_SILENT

The authentication service should not generate any messages.

PAM_DISALLOW_NULL_AUTHTOK

The authentication service should return

PAM_AUTH_ERROR

The user has a null authentication token.

The argc argument represents the number of module options passed in from the configuration file pam.conf(4). argv specifies the module options, which are interpreted and processed by the authentication service. Please refer to the specific module man pages for the various available options. If any unknown option is passed in, the module should log the error and ignore the option.

Before returning, pam_sm_authenticate() should call pam_get_item() and retrieve PAM_AUTHTOK. If it has not been set before and the value is NULL, pam_sm_authenticate() should set it to the password entered by the user using pam_set_item().

An authentication module may save the authentication status (success or reason for failure) as state in the authentication handle using pam_set_data(3PAM). This information is intended for use by pam_setcred().

Upon successful completion, PAM_SUCCESS must be returned. In addition, the following values may be returned:

PAM_MAXTRIES

Maximum number of authentication attempts exceeded.

PAM_AUTH_ERR

Authentication failure.

PAM_CRED_INSUFFICIENT

Cannot access authentication data due to insufficient credentials.

PAM_AUTHINFO_UNAVAIL

Underlying authentication service can not retrieve authentication information.

PAM_USER_UNKNOWN

User not known to underlying authentication module.

PAM_IGNORE

Ignore underlying authentication module regardless of whether the control flag is required,optional, or sufficient1.

See attributes(5) for description of the following attributes:

pam(3PAM), pam_authenticate(3PAM), pam_get_item(3PAM), pam_set_data(3PAM), pam_set_item(3PAM), pam_setcred(3PAM), pam_start(3PAM), libpam(3LIB), pam.conf(4), attributes(5)

Modules should not retry the authentication in the event of a failure. Applications handle authentication retries and maintain the retry count. To limit the number of retries, the module can return a PAM_MAXTRIES error.

The interfaces in libpam are MT-Safe only if each thread within the multithreaded application uses its own PAM handle.