PAM_ABL(1)

Table of Contents

1. NAME
2. SYNOPSIS
3. DESCRIPTION
4. OPTIONS
4.1. MAINTENANCE
4.2. NON-PAM INTERACTION
5. EXAMPLES
6. AUTHORS
7. REPORTING BUGS
8. SEE ALSO

1. NAME

pam_abl - query or purge the databases used by the pam_abl module.

2. SYNOPSIS

pam_abl [OPTION] [CONFIG]

3. DESCRIPTION

Provides a non-pam interface to the information stored in the pam_abl module databases. CONFIG is the name of the pam_abl config file (default: /etc/security/pam_abl.conf). The config file is read to discover the names of the pam_abl databases, the rules that control purging of old data from them and commands to run when a user or host switches state.

4. OPTIONS

4.1. MAINTENANCE

-h, --help
See this message.
-d, --debugcommand
Print the block/clear commands split in arguments.
-p, --purge
Purge databases according to purge rules in config.
-r, --relative
Display times relative to now.
-v, --verbose
Verbose output.

4.2. NON-PAM INTERACTION

-f, --fail
Fail user or host.
-w, --whitelist
Perform whitelisting (remove from blacklist, does not provide immunity).
-c, --check
Check status. Returns non-zero if currently blocked Prints name: status if verboseness is specified. If more than one host or user is given, checks only the first host/user pair.
-u, --update
Update the state of all users/hosts in the db. This will also cause the appropriate scripts to be called.
-s, --service
Operate in context of specified service. Defaults to none.
-U, --user
Operate on user (wildcards are ok for whitelisting).
-H, --host
Operate on host (wildcards are ok for whitelisting).
-R, --reason
Only used when -f is provided (defaults to "AUTH"). Specifies why the authentication failed. Possible values are USER, HOST, BOTH, AUTH

If you specified commands to run in your configuration, those commands will try to run if the host or user switches state (blocked <→ clear) since the last time it was checked. The command will only be able to run, however, if you supply enough information to fill in the substitutions in the command. If using the command line tool for instance, and your host_clear_cmd uses the %s parameter, you will need to specify the service on the command line with -s in order for the host_clear_cmd to actually run.

5. EXAMPLES

Obtain a list of failed hosts and users:

$ pam_abl

Obtain a full list of failures listing times relative to now:

$ pam_abl -rv $ pam_abl --relative --verbose

Purge old data:

$ pam_abl -p $ pam_abl --purge

Unblock all example.com, somewhere.com hosts:

$ pam_abl -w -H *.example.com -H \*.somewhere.com

Fail the host badguy.com and the user joe because the authentication failed:

$ pam_abl -f -H badguy.com -U joe -R AUTH

Check whether joe is currently allowed to use your neato service from somehost, running the necessary commands if he switches state:

$ pam_abl -c -U joe -H somehost -s neato

Because the user/host state is only updated when an attempt is made, you can manually force pam-abl to update the states and call the correct scripts:

$ pam_abl -u

6. AUTHORS

Lode Mertens

Andy Armstrong

Chris Tasma

7. REPORTING BUGS

Report bugs at http://sourceforge.net/projects/pam-abl/support or using the bugtracker on sourceforge.

8. SEE ALSO

pam_abl.conf(5), pam_abl(8)