pam config

[Bevan C. Bennett]

Adam Kosmin wrote:
  > I'm looking at my pam configuration and noticed something odd in
> /etc/pam.d/other
> 
> Each line contains a reference to a path that does not exist. For
> example:
> 
> auth	required	/lib/security/$ISA/pam_deny.so
> 
> My filesystem does not contain a directory path of /lib/security/$ISA so
> I can't help but become curious.

On most GNU/Linux platforms, the variable $ISA is not set, which makes 
those paths /lib/security//pam_deny.so (which do exist). On certain 
paltforms (Solaris in particular), it's used to specify between 
different sets of binaries (in Solaris' case, between 32 and 64-bit 
versions, the latter of which get $ISA set to 'sparcv9').

It may get used similarly on 64-bit platforms under Linux.

In any case, don't worry too much about it.