PAM_TTY_AUDIT(8) Linux-PAM Manual PAM_TTY_AUDIT(8)
NAME
pam_tty_audit - Enable or disable TTY auditing for specified users
SYNOPSIS
pam_tty_audit.so [disable=patterns] [enable=patterns]
DESCRIPTION
The pam_tty_audit PAM module is used to enable or disable TTY auditing.
By default, the kernel does not audit input on any TTY.
OPTIONS
disable=patterns
For each user matching patterns, disable TTY auditing. This
overrides any previous enable option matching the same user name on
the command line. See NOTES for further description of patterns.
enable=patterns
For each user matching patterns, enable TTY auditing. This overrides
any previous disable option matching the same user name on the
command line. See NOTES for further description of patterns.
open_only
Set the TTY audit flag when opening the session, but do not restore
it when closing the session. Using this option is necessary for some
services that don't fork() to run the authenticated session, such as
sudo.
log_passwd
Log keystrokes when ECHO mode is off but ICANON mode is active. This
is the mode in which the tty is placed during password entry. By
default, passwords are not logged. This option may not be available
on older kernels (3.9?).
MODULE TYPES PROVIDED
Only the session type is supported.
RETURN VALUES
PAM_SESSION_ERR
Error reading or modifying the TTY audit flag. See the system log
for more details.
PAM_SUCCESS
Success.
NOTES
When TTY auditing is enabled, it is inherited by all processes started
by that user. In particular, daemons restarted by a user will still have
TTY auditing enabled, and audit TTY input even by other users unless
auditing for these users is explicitly disabled. Therefore, it is
recommended to use disable=* as the first option for most daemons using
PAM.
To view the data that was logged by the kernel to audit use the command
aureport --tty.
The patterns are comma separated lists of glob patterns or ranges of
uids. A range is specified as min_uid:max_uid where one of these values
can be empty. If min_uid is empty only user with the uid max_uid will be
matched. If max_uid is empty users with the uid greater than or equal to
min_uid will be matched.
Please note that passwords in some circumstances may be logged by TTY
auditing even if the log_passwd is not used. For example, all input to
an ssh session will be logged - even if there is a password being typed
into some software running at the remote host because only the local TTY
state affects the local TTY auditing.
EXAMPLES
Audit all administrative actions.
session required pam_tty_audit.so disable=* enable=root
SEE ALSO
aureport(8), pam.conf(5), pam.d(5), pam(7)
AUTHOR
pam_tty_audit was written by Miloslav Trmač <mitr@redhat.com>. The
log_passwd option was added by Richard Guy Briggs <rgb@redhat.com>.
Linux-PAM 06/29/2025 PAM_TTY_AUDIT(8)
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