PAM_TALLY(8)							 Linux-PAM Manual						      PAM_TALLY(8)

NAME

       pam_tally - The login counter (tallying) module

SYNOPSIS

       pam_tally.so [file=/path/to/counter] [onerr=[fail|succeed]] [magic_root] [even_deny_root_account] [deny=n] [lock_time=n] [unlock_time=n]
		    [per_user] [no_lock_time] [no_reset] [audit] [silent] [no_log_info]

       pam_tally [--file /path/to/counter] [--user username] [--reset[=n]] [--quiet]

DESCRIPTION

       This module maintains a count of attempted accesses, can reset count on success, can deny access if too many attempts fail.

       pam_tally comes in two parts: pam_tally.so and pam_tally. The former is the PAM module and the latter, a stand-alone program.  pam_tally is
       an (optional) application which can be used to interrogate and manipulate the counter file. It can display users' counts, set individual
       counts, or clear all counts. Setting artificially high counts may be useful for blocking users without changing their passwords. For
       example, one might find it useful to clear all counts every midnight from a cron job. The faillog(8) command can be used instead of
       pam_tally to to maintain the counter file.

       Normally, failed attempts to access root will not cause the root account to become blocked, to prevent denial-of-service: if your users
       aren't given shell accounts and root may only login via su or at the machine console (not telnet/rsh, etc), this is safe.

OPTIONS

       GLOBAL OPTIONS
	   This can be used for auth and account module types.

	   onerr=[fail|succeed]
	       If something weird happens (like unable to open the file), return with PAM_SUCCESS if onerr=succeed is given, else with the
	       corresponding PAM error code.

	   file=/path/to/counter
	       File where to keep counts. Default is /var/log/faillog.

	   audit
	       Will log the user name into the system log if the user is not found.

	   silent
	       Don't print informative messages.

	   no_log_info
	       Don't log informative messages via syslog(3).

       AUTH OPTIONS
	   Authentication phase first checks if user should be denied access and if not it increments attempted login counter. Then on call to
	   pam_setcred(3) it resets the attempts counter.

	   deny=n
	       Deny access if tally for this user exceeds n.

	   lock_time=n
	       Always deny for n seconds after failed attempt.

	   unlock_time=n
	       Allow access after n seconds after failed attempt. If this option is used the user will be locked out for the specified amount of
	       time after he exceeded his maximum allowed attempts. Otherwise the account is locked until the lock is removed by a manual
	       intervention of the system administrator.

	   magic_root
	       If the module is invoked by a user with uid=0 the counter is not incremented. The sysadmin should use this for user launched
	       services, like su, otherwise this argument should be omitted.

	   no_lock_time
	       Do not use the .fail_locktime field in /var/log/faillog for this user.

	   no_reset
	       Don't reset count on successful entry, only decrement.

	   even_deny_root_account
	       Root account can become unavailable.

	   per_user
	       If /var/log/faillog contains a non-zero .fail_max/.fail_locktime field for this user then use it instead of deny=n/ lock_time=n
	       parameter.

	   no_lock_time
	       Don't use .fail_locktime filed in /var/log/faillog for this user.

       ACCOUNT OPTIONS
	   Account phase resets attempts counter if the user is not magic root. This phase can be used optionally for services which don't call
	   pam_setcred(3) correctly or if the reset should be done regardless of the failure of the account phase of other modules.

	   magic_root
	       If the module is invoked by a user with uid=0 the counter is not incremented. The sysadmin should use this for user launched
	       services, like su, otherwise this argument should be omitted.

	   no_reset
	       Don't reset count on successful entry, only decrement.

MODULE TYPES PROVIDED

       The auth and account module types are provided.

RETURN VALUES

       PAM_AUTH_ERR
	   A invalid option was given, the module was not able to retrieve the user name, no valid counter file was found, or too many failed
	   logins.

       PAM_SUCCESS
	   Everything was successful.

       PAM_USER_UNKNOWN
	   User not known.

EXAMPLES

       Add the following line to /etc/pam.d/login to lock the account after too many failed logins. The number of allowed fails is specified by
       /var/log/faillog and needs to be set with pam_tally or faillog(8) before.

	   auth     required	   pam_securetty.so
	   auth     required	   pam_tally.so per_user
	   auth     required	   pam_env.so
	   auth     required	   pam_unix.so
	   auth     required	   pam_nologin.so
	   account  required	   pam_unix.so
	   password required	   pam_unix.so
	   session  required	   pam_limits.so
	   session  required	   pam_unix.so
	   session  required	   pam_lastlog.so nowtmp
	   session  optional	   pam_mail.so standard

FILES

       /var/log/faillog
	   failure logging file

SEE ALSO

       faillog(8), pam.conf(5), pam.d(5), pam(8)

AUTHOR

       pam_tally was written by Tim Baverstock and Tomas Mraz.

Linux-PAM Manual						    04/01/2010							      PAM_TALLY(8)