# $(@) $Id: README,v 1.1.1.1 1999/05/10 16:56:24 baggins Exp $

			pam_make README

	Yet another PAM module? Maybe, but since I needed it, I thought it
may be useful for others as well.

	pam_make is a module that does a 
make -C yourdirectory

provided that in /etc/pam.d/service one has a password entry like:

password   required     /lib/security/pam_make.so yourdirectory

	So, what's the deal? Why should I make an application run a make in
a directory?
	On the system I configured once I had >3000 users. So, things began
to be quite slow. I am happy with the db system files that come with glibc 2.0.6
and newer. Basically, one should just configure /etc/nssitch.conf and build
the db files in a directory like /var/db.
	Every time one updates her password, the db password database should
be updates as well. Since I did not feel like writing a module to directly hack
/var/db/passwd.db and alike, I decided it's easier to make a module that runs 
the Makefile from that directory.
	So one with such a password scheme can insert the line

password   required     /lib/security/pam_make.so /var/db

in /etc/pam.d/passwd, and the plaintext system files and the db ones should
be kept in sync.

	I know it may look strange and slow. But updating passwords is by
far a very seldom operation compared to usual authentication. So I do not
care that updating a password may take five seconds, the one who does it can
wait. But I do care if the authentication mechanism takes more than one
second. So, speeding up what is very frequently done should increase the
overall performance.

	Please send comments and bugs to Mihai Ibanescu <misa@dntis.ro>

ftp://sysadm.dntis.ro/pub/devel/pam/pam_make
