pam_keyinit — Kernel session keyring initialiser module

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DESCRIPTION

The pam_keyinit PAM module ensures that the invoking process has a session
keyring other than the user default session keyring.

The module checks to see if the process's session keyring is the 
user-session-keyring(7), and, if it is, creates a new session-keyring(7) with
which to replace it. If a new session keyring is created, it will install a
link to the user-keyring(7) in the session keyring so that keys common to the
user will be automatically accessible through it. The session keyring of the
invoking process will thenceforth be inherited by all its children unless they
override it.

In order to allow other PAM modules to attach tokens to the keyring, this
module provides both an auth (limited to pam_setcred(3) and a session
component. The session keyring is created in the module called. Moreover this
module should be included as early as possible in a PAM configuration.

This module is intended primarily for use by login processes. Be aware that
after the session keyring has been replaced, the old session keyring and the
keys it contains will no longer be accessible.

This module should not, generally, be invoked by programs like su, since it is
usually desirable for the key set to percolate through to the alternate
context. The keys have their own permissions system to manage this.

The keyutils package is used to manipulate keys more directly. This can be
obtained from:

Keyutils

OPTIONS

debug

    Log debug information with syslog(3).

force

    Causes the session keyring of the invoking process to be replaced
    unconditionally.

revoke

    Causes the session keyring of the invoking process to be revoked when the
    invoking process exits if the session keyring was created for this process
    in the first place.

EXAMPLES

Add this line to your login entries to start each login session with its own
session keyring:

session  required  pam_keyinit.so


This will prevent keys from one session leaking into another session for the
same user.

AUTHOR

pam_keyinit was written by David Howells, <dhowells@redhat.com>.

