Ldap NSS PAM Samba

[Mel]

On Friday 11 July 2008 02:03:04 Tim Judd wrote:
> I can't quote easily what the difference
> between NSS and PAM is

PAM is a module that abstracts authentication, it does not authenticate 
itself, yet asks "providers" if the information passed to it is correct and 
then relays this to the application or tries a different method if this is 
allowed.

NSS is an abstraction of cryptographic protocols, applied to a network. In 
this schema, it is a transport provider:

 ------- Application -------    ----- Network -----
/                           \  /                   \
+---------------+       +-----+       +-----+       +---------------+
+ User/password | <---> | PAM | <---> | NSS | <---> | LDAP database +
+---------------+       +-----+       +-----+       +---------------+
                           \                            /
                            \______Authentication______/

-- 
Mel

Problem with today's modular software: they start with the modules
    and never get to the software part.