> With pam_ldap being called first in PAM, it should > query the pam_ldap The scheme I am trying to set up is one in which the user can set any order of authentication modules. So I can't guarantee pam_ldap being first. >From my inspection of pam_unix and pam_ldap, I see both modules calling getpnam or getspnam according to the type of encryption of the password. getpnam / getspnam are "gate functions" for whichever Name Switch Service function has been selected, for example : when I set nsswitch.conf to passwd: ldap files It is equivalent to : getpnam -> _nss_ldap_getpnam -> getpnam ( glibc provided ) But if I set nsswitch.conf to passwd: files ldap It is equivalent to getpnam -> getpnam ( glibc provided ) -> _nss_ldap_getpnam The key point I have noted here is that getpnam / getspnam looks up a password according to user name. In my case user joe exists in both the local database and in the ldap database, BUT ( rightly or wrongly ) has DIFFERENT passwords. Nss doesn't know joe has different passwords, all it knows is that every time someone calls it asking for user joe's password, nss looks up the user in it's databases according to the order set in nsswitch.conf. So in this case, Nss will always choose the first ( _nss_ldap_getpnam ) and so when pam unix tries to verify the password returned by getpnam against what the user typed in, it will always fail. Which is back to my original posting. Does anyone know a way around this ? __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools _______________________________________________ Pam-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/pam-list