atd: Authentication service cannot retrieve authentication info.

[David L. Crow]

On Wed, 2 Mar 2005, David L. Crow wrote:
> This message is coming from PAM, but I don't know how to determine which
> authentication service is mis-configured or broken.

Further investigation shows that most, if not all, PAM modules allow a
"debug" argument.  When I added this to all of the module lines in
/etc/pam.d/atd, I see the following syslog messages (/var/log/secure):

   Mar  3 22:51:00 waterloo pam_stack[31567]: called for "PAM_ACCOUNT"
   Mar  3 22:51:00 waterloo pam_stack[31567]: called from "atd"
   Mar  3 22:51:00 waterloo pam_stack[31567]: initializing
   Mar  3 22:51:00 waterloo pam_stack[31567]: creating child stack `system-auth'
   Mar  3 22:51:00 waterloo pam_stack[31567]: creating environment
   Mar  3 22:51:00 waterloo pam_stack[31567]: NOT passing PAM_AUTHTOK to child: source is NULL
   Mar  3 22:51:00 waterloo pam_stack[31567]: passing PAM_CONV to child
   Mar  3 22:51:00 waterloo pam_stack[31567]: NOT passing PAM_FAIL_DELAY to child: source not set
   Mar  3 22:51:00 waterloo pam_stack[31567]: NOT passing PAM_OLDAUTHTOK to child: source is NULL
   Mar  3 22:51:00 waterloo pam_stack[31567]: NOT passing PAM_RHOST to child: source is NULL
   Mar  3 22:51:00 waterloo pam_stack[31567]: NOT passing PAM_RUSER to child: source is NULL
   Mar  3 22:51:00 waterloo pam_stack[31567]: passing PAM_SERVICE to child
   Mar  3 22:51:00 waterloo pam_stack[31567]: passing PAM_TTY to child
   Mar  3 22:51:00 waterloo pam_stack[31567]: passing PAM_USER to child
   Mar  3 22:51:00 waterloo pam_stack[31567]: NOT passing PAM_USER_PROMPT to child: source is NULL
   Mar  3 22:51:00 waterloo pam_stack[31567]: passing data to child
   Mar  3 22:51:00 waterloo pam_stack[31567]: calling substack
   Mar  3 22:51:00 waterloo pam_stack[31567]: substack returned 9 (Authentication service cannot retrieve authentication info.)
   Mar  3 22:51:00 waterloo pam_stack[31567]: NOT passing PAM_AUTHTOK to parent: source is NULL
   Mar  3 22:51:00 waterloo pam_stack[31567]: passing PAM_CONV to parent
   Mar  3 22:51:00 waterloo pam_stack[31567]: NOT passing PAM_FAIL_DELAY to parent: source not set
   Mar  3 22:51:00 waterloo pam_stack[31567]: NOT passing PAM_OLDAUTHTOK to parent: source is NULL
   Mar  3 22:51:00 waterloo pam_stack[31567]: NOT passing PAM_RHOST to parent: source is NULL
   Mar  3 22:51:00 waterloo pam_stack[31567]: NOT passing PAM_RUSER to parent: source is NULL
   Mar  3 22:51:00 waterloo pam_stack[31567]: passing PAM_SERVICE to parent
   Mar  3 22:51:00 waterloo pam_stack[31567]: passing PAM_TTY to parent
   Mar  3 22:51:00 waterloo pam_stack[31567]: passing PAM_USER to parent
   Mar  3 22:51:00 waterloo pam_stack[31567]: NOT passing PAM_USER_PROMPT to parent: source is NULL
   Mar  3 22:51:00 waterloo pam_stack[31567]: passing data back
   Mar  3 22:51:00 waterloo pam_stack[31567]: passing former back
   Mar  3 22:51:00 waterloo pam_stack[31567]: returning 9 (Authentication service cannot retrieve authentication info.)
   Mar  3 22:51:00 waterloo atd[31567]: Authentication service cannot retrieve authentication info.
   Mar  3 22:51:00 waterloo pam_stack[31567]: freeing stack data for `system-auth' service

Any ideas what this is telling me?

-- 
  David L. Crow                     Texas!  It's like a
  crow at OrangeBlood.org              whole other country.