PAM_START(3)						  Application Programmers' Manual					      PAM_START(3)

NAME

       pam_start, pam_end - activating Linux-PAM

SYNOPSIS

       #include <security/pam_appl.h>

       int pam_start(const char *service, const char *user, const struct pam_conv *conv, pam_handle_t **pamh_p);

       int pam_end(pam_handle_t *pamh, int pam_status);

DESCRIPTION

       pam_start
	      Initialize  the  Linux-PAM  library.   Identifying  the application with a particular service name.  The username can take the value
	      NULL, if not known at the time the interface is initialized.  The conversation structure is passed to the library via the conv argu-
	      ment.   (For  a  complete  description of this and other structures the reader is directed to the more verbose Linux-PAM application
	      developers' guide).  Upon successful initialization, an opaque pointer-handle for future access to the library is  returned  through
	      the contents of the pamh_p pointer.

       pam_end
	      Terminate the Linux-PAM library.	The service application associated with the pamh handle, is terminated.  The argument, pam_status,
	      passes the value most recently returned to the application from the library; it indicates the manner in which the library should	be
	      shutdown.   Besides  carrying  a	return value, this argument may be logically OR'd with PAM_DATA_SILENT to indicate that the module
	      should not treat the call too seriously. It is generally used to indicate that the current closing of the library is in a  fork(2)ed
	      process, and that the parent will take care of cleaning up things that exist outside of the current process space (files etc.).

RETURN VALUE

       pam_start

       pam_end
	      On success, PAM_SUCCESS is returned

ERRORS

       May be translated to text with pam_strerror(3).

CONFORMING TO

       DCE-RFC 86.0, October 1995.

       Note, the PAM_DATA_SILENT flag is pending acceptance with the DCE (as of 1996/12/4).

BUGS

       None known.

SEE ALSO

       fork(2), pam_authenticate(3), pam_acct_mgmt(3), pam_open_session(3), and pam_chauthtok(3).

       Also, see the three Linux-PAM Guides, for System administrators, module developers, and application developers.

Linux-PAM 0.56							    1997 Feb 15 						      PAM_START(3)