Manual: pam_tty_audit

PAM_TTY_AUDIT(8)				      Linux-PAM Manual					    PAM_TTY_AUDIT(8)

NAME
       pam_tty_audit - Enable or disable TTY auditing for specified users

SYNOPSIS

       pam_tty_audit.so [disable=patterns] [enable=patterns]

DESCRIPTION
       The pam_tty_audit PAM module is used to enable or disable TTY auditing. By default, the kernel does not audit input
       on any TTY.

OPTIONS
       disable=patterns
	   For each user matching patterns, disable TTY auditing. This overrides any previous enable option matching the
	   same user name on the command line. See NOTES for further description of patterns.

       enable=patterns
	   For each user matching patterns, enable TTY auditing. This overrides any previous disable option matching the
	   same user name on the command line. See NOTES for further description of patterns.

       open_only
	   Set the TTY audit flag when opening the session, but do not restore it when closing the session. Using this
	   option is necessary for some services that don't fork() to run the authenticated session, such as sudo.

       log_passwd
	   Log keystrokes when ECHO mode is off but ICANON mode is active. This is the mode in which the tty is placed
	   during password entry. By default, passwords are not logged. This option may not be available on older kernels
	   (3.9?).

MODULE TYPES PROVIDED
       Only the session type is supported.

RETURN VALUES
       PAM_SESSION_ERR
	   Error reading or modifying the TTY audit flag. See the system log for more details.

       PAM_SUCCESS
	   Success.

NOTES
       When TTY auditing is enabled, it is inherited by all processes started by that user. In particular, daemons restarted
       by a user will still have TTY auditing enabled, and audit TTY input even by other users unless auditing for these
       users is explicitly disabled. Therefore, it is recommended to use disable=* as the first option for most daemons
       using PAM.

       To view the data that was logged by the kernel to audit use the command aureport --tty.

       The patterns are comma separated lists of glob patterns or ranges of uids. A range is specified as min_uid:max_uid
       where one of these values can be empty. If min_uid is empty only user with the uid max_uid will be matched. If
       max_uid is empty users with the uid greater than or equal to min_uid will be matched.

       Please note that passwords in some circumstances may be logged by TTY auditing even if the log_passwd is not used.
       For example, all input to an ssh session will be logged - even if there is a password being typed into some software
       running at the remote host because only the local TTY state affects the local TTY auditing.

EXAMPLES
       Audit all administrative actions.

	   session   required pam_tty_audit.so disable=* enable=root

SEE ALSO
       aureport(8), pam.conf(5), pam.d(5), pam(7)

AUTHOR
       pam_tty_audit was written by Miloslav Trmač . The log_passwd option was added by Richard Guy Briggs
       .

Linux-PAM						 07/16/2026					    PAM_TTY_AUDIT(8)