pam_unix comes as one module pam_unix.so. The following links are left for compatibility with old versions: pam_unix_auth: authentication module providing pam_authenticate() and pam_setcred() hooks pam_unix_sess: session module, providing session logging pam_unix_acct: account management, providing shadow account managment features, password aging etc.. pam_unix_passwd: password updating facilities providing cracklib password strength checking facilities. The following options are recognized: debug - log more debugging info audit - a little more extreme than debug use_first_pass - don't prompt the user for passwords take them from PAM_ items instead try_first_pass - don't prompt the user for the passwords unless PAM_(OLD)AUTHTOK is unset use_authtok - like try_first_pass, but * fail * if the new PAM_AUTHTOK has not been previously set. (intended for stacking password modules only) not_set_pass - don't set the PAM_ items with the passwords used by this module. shadow - try to maintian a shadow based system. md5 - when a user changes their password next, encrypt it with the md5 algorithm. bigcrypt - when a user changes their password next, excrypt it with the DEC C2 - algorithm(0). nodelay - used to prevent failed authentication resulting in a delay of about 1 second. nis - use NIS RPC for setting new password remember=X - remember X old passwords, they are kept in /etc/security/opasswd in MD5 crypted form broken_shadow - ignore errors reading shadow information for users in the account management module invalid arguments are logged to syslog.