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 has several limitations, which are solved with pam_tally2. For this reason
       pam_tally is deprecated and will be removed in a future release.

       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(7)

AUTHOR

       pam_tally was written by Tim Baverstock and Tomas Mraz.