SASLAUTHD(8) BSD System Manager's Manual SASLAUTHD(8)
[1mNAME[0m
[1msaslauthd [22m— sasl authentication server
[1mSYNOPSIS[0m
[1msaslauthd -a [4m[22mauthmech[24m [[1m-Tvdchlr[22m] [[1m-O [4m[22moption[24m] [[1m-m [4m[22mmux_path[24m] [[1m-n [4m[22mthreads[24m]
[[1m-s [4m[22msize[24m] [[1m-t [4m[22mtimeout[24m]
[1mDESCRIPTION[0m
[1msaslauthd [22mis a daemon process that handles plaintext authentication
requests on behalf of the SASL library.
The server fulfills two roles: it isolates all code requiring superuser
privileges into a single process, and it can be used to provide [4mproxy[0m
authentication services to clients that do not understand SASL based
authentication.
[1msaslauthd [22mshould be started from the system boot scripts when going to
multi-user mode. When running against a protected authentication database
(e.g. the shadow mechanism), it must be run as the superuser. Otherwise
it is recommended to run daemon unprivileged as saslauth:saslauth,
requiring the runtime directory to have root:saslauthd owner. You can do
so by following these steps in machines using systemd(1) :
1. create directory [4m/etc/systemd/system/saslauthd.service.d/[0m
2. create file [4m/etc/systemd/system/saslauthd.service.d/user.conf[24m with
content
[Service]
User=saslauth
Group=saslauth
3. Reload systemd service file: run “systemctl daemon-reload”
[1mOptions[0m
Options named by lower-case letters configure the server itself.
Upper-case options control the behavior of specific authentication mecha‐
nisms; their applicability to a particular authentication mechanism is
described in the [4mAUTHENTICATION[24m [4mMECHANISMS[24m section.
[1m-a [4m[22mauthmech[0m
Use [4mauthmech[24m as the authentication mechanism. (See the
[4mAUTHENTICATION[24m [4mMECHANISMS[24m section below.) This parameter is
mandatory.
[1m-O [4m[22moption[0m
A mechanism specific option (e.g. rimap hostname or config file
path)
[1m-H [4m[22mhostname[0m
The remote host to be contacted by the rimap authentication mech‐
anism. (Deprecated, use -O instead)
[1m-m [4m[22mpath[0m
Use [4mpath[24m as the pathname to the named socket to listen on for
connection requests. This must be an absolute pathname, and MUST
NOT include the trailing "/mux". Note that the default for this
value is "/var/state/saslauthd" (or what was specified at compile
time) and that this directory must exist for saslauthd to func‐
tion.
[1m-n [4m[22mthreads[0m
Use [4mthreads[24m processes for responding to authentication queries.
(default: 5) A value of zero will indicate that saslauthd should
fork an individual process for each connection. This can solve
leaks that occur in some deployments.
[1m-s [4m[22msize[0m
Use [4msize[24m as the table size of the hash table (in kilobytes)
[1m-t [4m[22mtimeout[0m
Use [4mtimeout[24m as the expiration time of the authentication cache
(in seconds)
[1m-T [22mHonour time-of-day login restrictions.
[1m-h [22mShow usage information
[1m-c [22mEnable caching of authentication credentials
[1m-l [22mDisable the use of a lock file for controlling access to
accept().
[1m-r [22mCombine the realm with the login (with an '@' sign in between).
e.g. login: "foo" realm: "bar" will get passed as login:
"foo@bar". Note that the realm will still be passed, which may
lead to unexpected behavior for authentication mechanisms that
make use of the realm, however for mechanisms which don't, such
as [4mgetpwent[24m, this is the only way to authenticate domain-specific
users sharing the same userid.
[1m-v [22mPrint the version number and available authentication mechanisms
on standard error, then exit.
[1m-d [22mDebugging mode.
[1mLogging[0m
[1msaslauthd [22mlogs its activities via [1msyslogd [22musing the LOG_AUTH facility.
[1mAUTHENTICATION MECHANISMS[0m
[1msaslauthd [22msupports one or more "authentication mechanisms", dependent
upon the facilities provided by the underlying operating system. The
mechanism is selected by the [1m-a [22mflag from the following list of choices:
dce [4m(AIX)[0m
Authenticate using the DCE authentication environment.
getpwent [4m(All[24m [4mplatforms)[0m
Authenticate using the [1mgetpwent[22m() library function. Typically
this authenticates against the local password file. See your
system's getpwent(3) man page for details.
kerberos4 [4m(All[24m [4mplatforms)[0m
Authenticate against the local Kerberos 4 realm. (See the
[4mNOTES[24m section for caveats about this driver.)
kerberos5 [4m(All[24m [4mplatforms)[0m
Authenticate against the local Kerberos 5 realm.
pam [4m(Linux,[24m [4mSolaris)[0m
Authenticate using Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM).
rimap [4m(All[24m [4mplatforms)[0m
Forward authentication requests to a remote IMAP server. This
driver connects to a remote IMAP server, specified using the
-O flag, and attempts to login (via an IMAP ‘LOGIN’ command)
using the credentials supplied to the local server. If the
remote authentication succeeds the local connection is also
considered to be authenticated. The remote connection is
closed as soon as the tagged response from the ‘LOGIN’ command
is received from the remote server.
The [4moption[24m parameter to the [1m-O [22mflag describes the remote
server to forward authentication requests to. [4mhostname[24m can be
a hostname (imap.example.com) or a dotted-quad IP address
(192.168.0.1). The latter is useful if the remote server is
multi-homed and has network interfaces that are unreachable
from the local IMAP server. The remote host is contacted on
the ‘imap’ service port. A non-default port can be specified
by appending a slash and the port name or number to the
[4mhostname[24m argument.
The [1m-O [22mflag and argument are mandatory when using the rimap
mechanism.
shadow [4m(AIX,[24m [4mIrix,[24m [4mLinux,[24m [4mSolaris)[0m
Authenticate against the local "shadow password file". The
exact mechanism is system dependent. [1msaslauthd [22mcurrently
understands the [1mgetspnam[22m() and [1mgetuserpw[22m() library routines.
Some systems honour the [1m-T [22mflag.
sasldb [4m(All[24m [4mplatforms)[0m
Authenticate against the SASL authentication database. Note
that this is probably not what you want to use, and is even
disabled at compile-time by default. If you want to use
sasldb with the SASL library, you probably want to use the
pwcheck_method of "auxprop" along with the sasldb auxprop
plugin instead.
ldap [4m(All[24m [4mplatforms[24m [4mthat[24m [4msupport[24m [4mOpenLDAP[24m [4m2.0[24m [4mor[24m [4mhigher)[0m
Authenticate against an ldap server. The ldap configuration
parameters are read from /usr/local/etc/saslauthd.conf. The
location of this file can be changed with the -O parameter.
See the LDAP_SASLAUTHD file included with the distribution for
the list of available parameters.
sia [4m(Digital[24m [4mUNIX)[0m
Authenticate using the Digital UNIX Security Integration
Architecture (a.k.a. "enhanced security").
[1mNOTES[0m
The kerberos4 authentication driver consumes considerable resources. To
perform an authentication it must obtain a ticket granting ticket from
the TGT server [1mon every authentication request. [22mThe Kerberos library rou‐
tines that obtain the TGT also create a local ticket file, on the reason‐
able assumption that you will want to save the TGT for use by other Ker‐
beros applications. These ticket files are unusable by [1msaslauthd [22m, how‐
ever there is no way not to create them. The overhead of creating and
removing these ticket files can cause serious performance degradation on
busy servers. (Kerberos was never intended to be used in this manner,
anyway.)
[1mFILES[0m
/var/run/saslauthd/mux The default communications socket.
/usr/local/etc/saslauthd.conf
The default configuration file for ldap support.
[1mSEE ALSO[0m
passwd(1), getpwent(3), getspnam(3), getuserpw(3), sasl_checkpass(3)
sia_authenticate_user(3),
CMU-SASL 12 12 2005 CMU-SASL