Man page 8 : pam_localuser

pam_localuser - require users to be listed in /etc/passwd

pam_localuser.so [debug] [file=/path/passwd]

pam_localuser is a PAM module to help implementing site-wide login policies, where they typically include a subset of the network\'s users and a few accounts that are local to a particular workstation. Using pam_localuser and pam_wheel or pam_listfile is an effective way to restrict access to either local users and/or a subset of the network\'s users.

This could also be implemented using pam_listfile.so and a very short awk script invoked by cron, but it\'s common enough to have been separated out.

debug
    Print debug information.

file=\fB/path/passwd\fR
    Use a file other than /etc/passwd.

All module types (account, auth, password and session) are provided.

PAM_SUCCESS
    The new localuser was set successfully.

PAM_SERVICE_ERR
    No username was given.

PAM_USER_UNKNOWN
    User not known.

Add the following line to /etc/pam.d/su to allow only local users in group wheel to use su.


    .

account sufficient pam_localuser.so
account required pam_wheel.so

.

/etc/passwd
    Local user account information.

pam.conf(5), pam.d(5), pam(7)

pam_localuser was written by Nalin Dahyabhai <>.