Compiling Linux-PAM on Solaris

[Darren Tucker]

Alex Stewart wrote:
> I'm looking to port the Linux-PAM package (or at least some portions of it) to
> Solaris 8/10 (more specifically, port the modules so that they can work with Solaris
> libpam) in order to be able to use a couple of the provided PAM modules on
> some of our Solaris systems.

One thing to be wary of is that LinuxPAM and Solaris' PAM handle the 
conversation structs differently.

This means that if any of the modules return more than one conversation 
item and don't take the double-reference precaution mentioned in the 
link (I don't know if either is the case for the modules that ship with 
LinuxPAM) then there's a pretty good chance that your PAM apps will 
segfault.

http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/libs/pam/Linux-PAM-html/mwg-expected-by-module-item.html#mwg-pam_conv

[quote]
In passing, it is worth noting that there is a descrepency between the 
way Linux-PAM handles the const struct pam_message **msg conversation 
function argument from the way that Solaris' PAM (and derivitives, known 
to include HP/UX, are there others?) does. Linux-PAM interprets the msg 
argument as entirely equivalent to the following prototype const struct 
pam_message *msg[] (which, in spirit, is consistent with the commonly 
used prototypes for argv argument to the familiar main() function: char 
**argv; and char *argv[]). Said another way Linux-PAM interprets the msg 
argument as a pointer to an array of num_meg read only 'struct 
pam_message' pointers. Solaris' PAM implementation interprets this 
argument as a pointer to a pointer to an array of num_meg pam_message 
structures.
[/quote]

-- 
Darren Tucker (dtucker at zip.com.au)
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     Good judgement comes with experience. Unfortunately, the experience
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