xref: /netbsd/external/bsd/pam-u2f/dist/man/pam_u2f.8.txt (revision 672d764f)

PAM_U2F(8)
==========
:doctype:      manpage
:man source:   pam-u2f
:man manual:   PAM U2F Module Manual

== NAME
pam_u2f - Module for U2F authentication

== SYNOPSIS
*pam_u2f* [...]

== DESCRIPTION
The module provides U2F authentication against Yubikeys and other
compliant authenticators.

== OPTIONS
*debug*::
Enables debug output

*debug_file*::
Filename to write debugging messages to. **If this file is missing,
nothing will be logged**. This regular file **has to be created by the
user** or **must exist and be a regular file** for anything getting
logged to it. It is not created by pam-u2f on purpose (for security
considerations). This filename may be alternatively set to "stderr"
(default), "stdout", or "syslog".

*origin*=_origin_::
Set the relying party ID for the FIDO authentication procedure. If no
value is specified, the identifier "pam://$HOSTNAME" is used.

*appid*=_appid_::
Set the application ID for the U2F authentication
procedure. If no value is specified, the same value used for origin is
taken ("pam://$HOSTNAME" if also origin is not specified). This setting
is only applicable for U2F credentials created with pamu2fcfg versions
v1.0.8 or earlier. Note that on v1.1.0 and v1.1.1 of pam-u2f, handling
of this setting was temporarily broken if the value was not the same as
the value of origin.

*authfile*=_file_::
Set the location of the file that holds the mappings of user
names to keyHandles and user keys. An individual (per user)
file may be configured relative to the users' home dirs, e.g.
".ssh/u2f_keys". If not specified, the location defaults to
$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/Yubico/u2f_keys. If $XDG_CONFIG_HOME is not set,
$HOME/.config/Yubico/u2f_keys is used. The authfile format is
<username>:<KeyHandle1>,<UserKey1>,<CoseType1>,<Options1>:<KeyHandle2>,<UserKey2>,<CoseType2>,<Options2>:...

*authpending_file*=_file_::
Set the location of the file that is used for touch request
notifications. This file will be opened when pam-u2f starts waiting
for a user to touch the device, and will be closed when it no longer
waits for a touch. Use inotify to listen on these events, or a more
high-level tool like yubikey-touch-detector. Default value:
/var/run/user/$UID/pam-u2f-authpending. Set an empty value in order to
disable this functionality, like so: "authpending_file=".

*nouserok*::
Set to enable authentication attempts to succeed even if the user
trying to authenticate is not found inside authfile or if authfile is
missing/malformed.

*openasuser*::
Setuid to the authenticating user when opening the authfile. Useful
when the user's home is stored on an NFS volume mounted with the
root_squash option (which maps root to nobody which will not be able
to read the file). Note that after release 1.0.8 this is done by
default when no global authfile or XDG_CONFIG_HOME environment
variable has been set.

*alwaysok*::
Set to enable all authentication attempts to succeed (aka presentation
mode).

*max_devices*=_n_devices_::
Maximum number of devices allowed per user (default is 24). Devices
specified in the authentication file that exceed this value will be
ignored.

*interactive*::
Set to prompt a message and wait before testing the presence of a U2F
device. Recommended if your device doesn't have tactile trigger.

*[prompt=your prompt here]*::
Set individual prompt message for interactive mode. Watch the square
brackets around this parameter to get spaces correctly recognized by
PAM.

*manual*::
Set to drop to a manual console where challenges are printed on screen
and response read from standard input. Useful for debugging and SSH
sessions without U2F-support from the SSH client/server. If enabled,
interactive mode becomes redundant and has no effect.

*cue*::
Set to prompt a message to remind to touch the device.

*[cue_prompt=your prompt here]*::
Set individual prompt message for the cue option. Watch the square
brackets around this parameter to get spaces correctly recognized by
PAM.

*nodetect*::
Skip detecting if a suitable key is inserted before performing a full
authentication. See *NOTES* below.

*userpresence*=_int_::
If 1, require user presence during authentication. If 0, do not
request user presence during authentication. Otherwise, fallback to
the authenticator's default behaviour.

*userverification*=_int_::
If 1, require user verification during authentication. If 0, do not
request user verification during authentication. Otherwise, fallback
to the authenticator's default behaviour.

*pinverification*=_int_::
If 1, require PIN verification during authentication. If 0, do not
request PIN verification during authentication. Otherwise, fallback to
the authenticator's default behaviour.

*sshformat*::
Use credentials produced by versions of OpenSSH that have support for
FIDO devices. It is not possible to mix native credentials and SSH
credentials. Once this option is enabled all credentials will be parsed
as SSH.

== EXAMPLES

auth sufficient pam_u2f.so debug origin=pam://$HOSTNAME appid=pam://$HOSTNAME

auth required pam_u2f.so origin=http://example.com appid=http://example.com authfile=/etc/yubikey_mappings

== CAVEATS
By default the mapping file inside a home directory will be opened as
the target user, whereas the central file will be opened as "root". If
the "XDG_CONFIG_HOME" variable is set, privileges will not be dropped
unless the "openasuser" configuration setting is set.

Using pam-u2f to secure the login to a computer while storing the
mapping file in an encrypted home directory, will result in the
impossibility of logging into the system. The partition is decrypted
after login and the mapping file can not be accessed.

== NOTES

*Nodetect*

The "nodetect" option should be used with caution. pam_u2f checks that
a key configured for the user is inserted before performing the full
tactile authentication. This detection is done by sending a
"check-only" authentication request to all inserted tokens to so see
if at least one of them responds affirmatively to one or more of the
keyhandles configured for the user. By doing this, pam_u2f can avoid
emitting the "cue" prompt (if configured), which can cause some
confusing UI issues if the cue is emitted followed by the underlying
library immediately failing the tactile authentication. This option is
also useful to avoid an unintended 1-second delay prior to the tactile
authentication caused by versions of libu2f-host \<= 1.1.5.

If pam_u2f is configured to "cue" and "nodetect", an attacker can
determine that pam_u2f is part of the authentication stack by
inserting any random U2F token and performing an authentication
attempt. In this scenario, the attacker would see the cue message
followed by an immediate failure, whereas with detection enabled, the
U2F authentication will fail silently. Understand that an attacker
could choose a U2F token that alerts him or her in some way to the
"check-only" authentication attempt, so this precaution only pushes
the issue back a step.

In summary, the detection feature was added to avoid confusing UI
issues and to prevent leaking information about the authentication
stack in very specific scenario when "cue" is configured. The
"nodetect" option was added to avoid buggy sleep behavior in older
versions of libu2f-host and for hypothetical tokens that do not
tolerate the double authentication. Detection is performed, and
likewise "nodetect" honored, regardless of whether "cue" is also
specified.

*SELinux*

Due to an issue with Fedora Linux, and possibly with other
distributions that use SELinux, a system configured with pam-u2f may
end up in a situation where access to the credentials file is denied.
If the `nouserok` option is also set, this will result in a successful
authentication within the module, without using the FIDO
authenticator.

In order to correctly update the security context the command
*fixfiles onboot* should be used on existing installations

Moreover, to allow read access to an authfile or directory placed in a
non-standard location, the command

  # chcon -R -t auth_home_t /path/to/authfile

should be used.

For more information see
https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2020-24612.

== BUGS
Report pam-u2f bugs in the issue tracker: https://github.com/Yubico/pam-u2f/issues

== SEE ALSO
*pam*(7)

The pam-u2f home page: https://developers.yubico.com/pam-u2f/

YubiKeys can be obtained from Yubico: http://www.yubico.com/