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pam_appl.html#toc1Contents 1. Introduction 
1.1 Synopsis 
For general applications that wish to use the services provided by
Linux-PAM the following is a summary of the relevant linking
information:
#include <security/pam_appl.h>
cc -o application .... -lpam -ldl
In addition to libpam, there is a library of miscellaneous
functions that make the job of writing 
PAM-aware applications
easier (this library is not covered in the DCE-RFC for PAM and is
specific to the Linux-PAM distribution):
...
#include <security/pam_misc.h>
cc -o application .... -lpam -lpam_misc -ldl
1.2 Description 
Linux-PAM (Pluggable Authentication Modules for Linux) is a
library that enables the local system administrator to choose how
individual applications authenticate users.  For an overview of the
Linux-PAM library see the Linux-PAM System
Administrators' Guide.
It is the purpose of the Linux-PAM project to liberate the
development of privilege granting software from the development of
secure and appropriate authentication schemes.  This is accomplished
by providing a documented library of functions that an application may
use for all forms of user authentication management. This library
dynamically loads locally configured authentication modules that
actually perform the authentication tasks.
From the perspective of an application developer the information
contained in the local configuration of the PAM library should not be
important.  Indeed it is intended that an application treat the
functions documented here as a ``black box'' that will deal with all
aspects of user authentication. ``All aspects'' includes user
verification, account management, session initialization/termination
and also the resetting of passwords (
authentication tokens).
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