Warning: This document is for the development version of Bareos Documentation. The main version is bareos-21.

PAM

PAM is an authentication method provided by many operating systems to establish a standardized interface for the authorization of users.

The name of the service to be registered with the respective PAM module is “bareos”.

The following sequence diagram shows three options how a user can be authorized on a Bareos Director Daemon:

  • Option 1: No PAM authentication using named console
  • Option 2: Interactive PAM authentication
  • Option 3: Direct PAM authentication

In this example the complete connection and authorization sequence of a Bareos Console respective Bareos Webui is shown.

A detailed description on the configuration see this chapter: Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM).

skinparam SequenceMessageAlign reversedirection

actor "Console\nWebUI" as W
participant "director\ndaemon" as D

W <-> D: Initiate TCP connection
W <-> D: TLS Cert/PSK Handshake
note right of D: <b>default console</b>: identity *UserAgent*,\npassword/key from director resource\n\n<b>named console</b>: identity <console-name>,\npassword/key from console resource

W -> D: "Hello <*UserAgent*|console-name> calling"

W <- D: "auth cram-md5[c] <password-md5> ssl=<0|1|2|4>"
W -> D: "<password-md5>"
W <-- D: On Failure [Close TLS connection]
W <- D: On Success: "1000 OK auth"

W -> D: "auth cram-md5[c] <password-md5> ssl=<0|1|2|4>"
W <- D: "<password-md5>"
W --> D: On Failure [Close TLS connection]
W -> D: On Success: "1000 OK auth"

... ...

== Option 1: No PAM authentication (Default Console) ==
... no further action ...

== Option 2: Interactive PAM authentication (Console) ==

note right of D: pam can only be used when connected \nwith a named console (__not__ default console) \nusing EnablePamAuthentication= yes

note left of W: (__RS__) is the Record Separator \n(ASCII-character 0x1e)

W <- D: "1001__RS__" (Pam Authentication required)
W -> D: "4001__RS__" (Interactive Pam (i.e. pam_unix))
W <- D: "0x2" (type = PAM_PROMPT_ECHO_ON)

note left of W:  type as bcd: \n0x0 (PAM_SUCCESS)\n0x1 (PAM_PROMPT_ECHO_OFF) \n0x2 (PAM_PROMPT_ECHO_ON)

W <- D: "Login:"
W -> D: "<cleartext pam-username>"
W <- D: "0x1" (type = PAM_PROMPT_ECHO_OFF)
W <- D: "Password:"
W -> D: "<cleartext pam-password>"
W <- D: On Success: "0x0" (PAM_SUCCESS)
W <- D: On Success: "0x0" (empty message)

== Option 3: Direct PAM authentication (WebUI) ==
W <- D: "1001__RS__" (Pam Authentication required)
W -> D: "4002__RS__Username__RS__Password" (PAM credentials)
... ...

== On any failure ==
W <--> D: [Close TLS connection]
W <--> D: Close TCP connection

== On success ==
W <- D: 1000__RS__OK:__RS__<director-name> Version: <version> (<date>)
W <- D: 1002__RS__<You are logged in as: <username>|You are connected using the default console>

... run some console commands ...

W <-> D: [Close TLS connection]
W <-> D: Close TCP connection

Console/WebUI connection sequence from Bareos 18.2