System Level Login

Anonymous Monk has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

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Re: System Level Login by growlf (Pilgrim) on Nov 15, 2001 at 00:55 UTC
Try User::pwent it should do the trick. Also try getpwent. Since the perldoc page seems empty, here is an example of getpwent: `($name,$pass,$uid,$gid,$quota,$comment,$gcos,$dir,$shell) = getpwent() +;` [download] Hope that helps. G	[reply] [d/l]
Re: System Level Login by perigeeV (Hermit) on Nov 15, 2001 at 03:34 UTC
If your system supports it, look into Pluggable Authentication Modules - PAM. A quote from the Linux PAM S.A. Guide: "It is the purpose of the Linux-PAM project to separate the development of privilege granting software from the development of secure and appropriate authentication schemes. This is accomplished by providing a library of functions that an application may use to request that a user be authenticated." The Authen-PAM module at CPAN will help.	[reply]
Re: System Level Login by Zaxo (Archbishop) on Nov 15, 2001 at 01:02 UTC
Creating system shell accounts may not be what you really want. If this is web based, consider whether http Basic Auth may be more appropriate. After Compline, Zaxo	[reply]
Re: System Level Login by cfreak (Chaplain) on Nov 15, 2001 at 00:45 UTC
The short answer to your question: probably yes. I've never done it before, but it would probably involve making your script setUID root. BUT, that is generally considered to be a bad thing(tm). You most certainly wouldn't want to do it if you are planning on running this over the web or something like that.	[reply]