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>

Debian                                         September 25, 1994                                 CALIFE.AUTH(5)