AUTHCONFIG

Section: Maintenance Commands (8)
Updated: 10 March 2008
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NAME

authconfig, authconfig-tui - an interface for configuring system authentication resources

SYNOPSIS

authconfig [options] {--update|--updateall|--test|--probe|--restorebackup <name>|--savebackup <name>|--restorelastbackup}

DESCRIPTION

authconfig provides a simple method of configuring /etc/sysconfig/network to handle NIS, as well as /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow, the files used for shadow password support. Basic LDAP, Kerberos 5, and SMB (authentication) client configuration is also provided.

If --test action is specified, authconfig can be run by users other then root, and any configuration changes are not saved but printed instead. If --update action is specified, authconfig must be run by root (or through console helper), and configuration changes are saved. The --probe action instructs authconfig to use DNS and other means to guess at configuration information for the current host, print its guesses if it finds them to standard output, and exit.

The --restorebackup, --savebackup, and --restorelastbackup actions provide a possibility to save and later restore a backup of configuration files which authconfig modifies. Authconfig also saves an automatic backup of configuration files before every configuration change. This special backup can be restored by the --restorelastbackup action.

If --nostart is specified (which is what the install program does), ypbind or other daemons will not be started or stopped immediately following program execution, but only enabled to start or stop at boot time.

The --enablenis, --enableldap, --enablewinbind, and --enablehesiod options are used to configure user information services in /etc/nsswitch.conf, the --enablecache option is used to configure naming services caching, and the --enableshadow, --enableldapauth, --enablekrb5, --enablewinbindauth, and --enablesmbauth options are used to configure authentication functions via /etc/pam.d/system-auth. Each --enable has a matching --disable option that disables the service if it is already enabled. The respective services have parameters which configure their server names etc.

The algorithm used for storing new password hashes can be specified by the --passalgo option which takes one of the following possible values as a parameter: descrypt, bigcrypt, md5, sha256, and sha512.

The --enablelocauthorize option allows to bypass checking network authentication services for authorization and the --enablesysnetauth allows authentication of system accounts (with uid < 500) by these services.

The list of options mentioned here in the manual page is not exhaustive, please refer to authconfig --help for the complete list of the options.

The authconfig-tui supports all options of authconfig but it implies --update as the default action. Its window contains a Cancel button by default. If --back option is specified at run time, a Back button is presented instead. If --kickstart is specified, no interactive screens will be seen. The values the program will use will be those specified by the other options (--passalgo, --enableshadow, etc.).

For namelistR you may substitute either a single name or a comma-separated list of names.

NOTES

The authconfig-tui is deprecated. No new configuration settings will be supported by its text user interface. Use system-config-authentication GUI application or the command line options instead.

RETURN CODES

authconfig returns 0 on success, 2 on error.

authconfig-tui returns 0 on success, 2 on error, and 1 if the user cancelled the program (by using either the Cancel or Back button).

FILES


/etc/sysconfig/authconfig: Used to track whether or not particular authentication mechanisms are enabled. Currently includes variables named USESHADOW, USEMD5, USEKERBEROS, USELDAPAUTH, USESMBAUTH, USEWINBIND, USEWINBINDAUTH, USEHESIOD, USENIS, USELDAP, and others.
/etc/passwd,: Used for shadow password support.
/etc/yp.conf: Configuration file for NIS support.
/etc/sysconfig/network: Another configuration file for NIS support.
/etc/ldap.conf: /etc/openldap/ldap.conf Used to configure LDAP (and OpenLDAP, respectively).
/etc/krb5.conf: Used to configure Kerberos 5.
/etc/krb.conf: Used to configure Kerberos IV (write-only).
/etc/hesiod.conf: Used to configure Hesiod.
/etc/pam_smb.conf: Used to configure SMB authentication.
/etc/samba/smb.conf: Used to configure winbind authentication.
/etc/nsswitch.conf: Used to configure user information services.
/etc/pam.d/system-auth: Common PAM configuration for system services which include it using the include directive. It is created as symlink and not relinked if it points to another file.
/etc/pam.d/system-auth-ac: Contains the actual PAM configuration for system services and is the default target of the /etc/pam.d/system-auth symlink. If a local configuration of PAM is created (and symlinked from system-auth file) this file can be included there.

AUTHORS

Nalin Dahyabhai <nalin@redhat.com>, Preston Brown <pbrown@redhat.com>,
Matt Wilson <msw@redhat.com>, Tomas Mraz <tmraz@redhat.com>