NAME

     calife.auth — format of the calife authorization file

DESCRIPTION

     The calife.auth files are files consisting of newline separated records, one per user,
     containing three colon (``:'') separated fields.  These fields are as follows:

           name   User's login name / @group.

           shell  User's shell

           user1,user2,...,usern
                  List of logins allowed for the user name

     The name field is the login used to access the computer account.

     The login name must never begin with a hyphen (``-''); also, it is strongly suggested that
     neither upper-case characters or dots (``.'') be part of the name, as this tends to confuse
     mailers.  No field may contain a colon (``:'') as this has been used historically to
     separate the fields in the user database.

     One alternative syntax is to use @group to specify that any user in the given group is
     allowed to use calife to become root.

     The shell field is the command interpreter the user prefers.  If there is nothing in the
     shell field, the user's current shell as found in the (/etc/passwd) file is assumed.

     If the shell field is '*', then the account is considered as locked and access is denied.

     If the third parameter is specified, it is assumed to be the list of login the current user
     has the right to become. It enables use of calife for non-root only accounts.

     calife.auth is placed in /etc.

EXAMPLE

     # calife.auth-dist
     #
     # Format
     #
     # name[:shell_to_be_run][:user1,user2,usern]
     #
     fcb
     roberto:/bin/tcsh
     pb::guest,blaireau

SEE ALSO

     calife(1), su(1)

HISTORY

     A calife.auth file format appeared in DG/UX and SunOS, written for Antenne 2 in 1991. It has
     evolved with the extra shell specification. The login list was reintroduced in 2.7.

AUTHOR

     Ollivier Robert <roberto@keltia.frmug.fr.net>