pam_start (3)
Leading comments
Title: pam_start
Author: [FIXME: author] [see http://docbook.sf.net/el/author]
Generator: DocBook XSL Stylesheets v1.78.1 <http://docbook.sf.net/>
Date: 09/19/2013
Manual: Linux-PAM Manual
Source: Linux-PAM Manual
Language: English
NAME
pam_start - initialization of PAM transactionSYNOPSIS
#include <security/pam_appl.h>
- int pam_start(const char *service_name, const char *user, const struct pam_conv *pam_conversation, pam_handle_t **pamh);
DESCRIPTION
The service_name argument specifies the name of the service to apply and will be stored as PAM_SERVICE item in the new context. The policy for the service will be read from the file /etc/pam.d/service_name or, if that file does not exist, from /etc/pam.conf.
The user argument can specify the name of the target user and will be stored as PAM_USER item. If the argument is NULL, the module has to ask for this item if necessary.
The pam_conversation argument points to a struct pam_conv describing the conversation function to use. An application must provide this for direct communication between a loaded module and the application.
Following a successful return (PAM_SUCCESS) the contents of pamh is a handle that contains the PAM context for successive calls to the PAM functions. In an error case is the content of pamh undefined.
The pam_handle_t is a blind structure and the application should not attempt to probe it directly for information. Instead the PAM library provides the functions pam_set_item(3) and pam_get_item(3). The PAM handle cannot be used for mulitiple authentications at the same time as long as pam_end was not called on it before.
RETURN VALUES
PAM_ABORT
- General failure.
PAM_BUF_ERR
- Memory buffer error.
PAM_SUCCESS
- Transaction was successful created.
PAM_SYSTEM_ERR
- System error, for example a NULL pointer was submitted instead of a pointer to data.
SEE ALSO
pam_get_data(3), pam_set_data(3), pam_end(3), pam_strerror(3)