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<html>
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    <title>pamela: building an application</title>
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<p>
<a href="index.html">pamela</a><br />
<a href="//skarnet.org/software/">Software</a><br />
<a href="//skarnet.org/">skarnet.org</a>
</p>

<h1> Building an application with pamela instead of Linux-PAM </h1>

<h2> Prerequisites </h2>

<ul>
 <li> The pamela package must have been properly built and installed;
in particular, the <a href="pamelad.html">pamelad</a> binary must
have been properly linked against Linux-PAM's <tt>libpam.so</tt>. </li>
 <li> The <tt>security/pam_appl.h</tt> header, usually installed in
<tt>/usr/include</tt>, must be a symlink to pamela's
<tt>pamela/pam.h</tt> header. This can be achieved by running
<tt>make install-symlink</tt> after <tt>make install</tt> when
building the pamela package. </li>
 <li> The application must strictly follow the
<a href="http://www.linux-pam.org/Linux-PAM-html/adg-interface-by-app-expected.html">Linux-PAM
specification</a>. Note that the page claims that the
<tt>pam_set_item()</tt> function is declared in <tt>security/pam_modules.h</tt>,
but it is a mistake: like every PAM function used by applications, it
is declared in <tt>security/pam_appl.h</tt>. </li>
 <li> The pamela headers and library must be installed, as well as the
<a href="//skarnet.org/software/skalibs/">skalibs</a> headers and library. </li>
</ul>

<h2> Compiling </h2>

<ul>
 <li> Make sure that the pamela headers and the skalibs headers
are visible in your header search path, and that the
Linux-PAM headers <em>are not</em>. </li>
 <li> If the compilation fails, please report the issue to the
skaware mailing-list. pamela is a work in progress, and there
may be compatibility issues that still need to be fixed. </li>
</ul>

<h2> Linking </h2>

<ul>
 <li> Make sure the pamela library, as well as the skalibs
library, are visible in your library search path. </li>
 <li> Do not add <tt>-lpam</tt> to your linking command line.
Instead, add <tt>-lpamela -lskarnet</tt>. Depending on the
libc you're using, you may have to add <tt>-lrt</tt> too. </li>
 <li> It is possible to statically link a binary using pamela:
the pamela and skalibs libraries do not use any dynamic loading,
and are suitable for static linking. Only the
<a href="pamelad.html">pamelad</a> binary uses dynamic module
loading and needs to be dynamically linked, and that is decided
at pamela build time, not at your application's build time. </li>
 <li> Check your application binary's dynamic library dependencies
after it has been built. If your binary depends on <tt>libpam</tt>,
it has been incorrectly made! Your binary should depend on
<tt>libpamela</tt> and <tt>libskarnet</tt>, but not <tt>libpam</tt>.
If you have chosen to link against the static version of pamela
and skalibs, you may not even see the <tt>libpamela</tt> and
<tt>libskarnet</tt> dependencies. </li>
</ul>

<h2> Programming </h2>

<ul>
 <li> pamela strictly implements the
<a href="http://www.linux-pam.org/Linux-PAM-html/adg-interface-by-app-expected.html">Linux-PAM
API</a> </li>
 <li> The <tt>pam_start()</tt> function will spawn a
<a href="pamelad.html">pamelad</a> binary running as a child of
the application, until <tt>pam_end()</tt> is called. At that point
the zombie is reaped. </li>
 <li> If the <a href="pamelad.html">pamelad</a> binary is killed
during the PAM session, all PAM calls will return PAM_ABORT.
The application should then just exit, or call <tt>pam_end()</tt>
to free resources: nothing more can be done with the session. </li>
</ul>

<h2> Running </h2>

<ul>
 <li> If your application runs as root, you can set the
PAMELA_UID and PAMELA_GID environment variables to a non-zero
numeric uid and a nonzero numeric gid prior to running it.
The <a href="pamelad.html">pamelad</a> binary will then drop
its privileges and run under this uid/gid. </li>
</ul>

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