pam_fprintd(8)

pam_fprintd8

Pam module to authenticate against fprintd, the fingerprint daemon

Usage

pam_fprintd.so [{debug | debug= [{on | off | true | false | 1 | 0}]}] [max-tries=MAX_TRIES] [timeout=TIMEOUT]

Overview

The pam_fprintd module is used to verify a user's fingerprints against fingerprints enrolled using fprintd, the fingerprint management daemon.

Options

debug
debug=[on|off|true|false|1|0]

Whether debug should be turned on or off. Debug messages will be generated using pam_syslog which means that they will be saved in the systemd journal by default.

max-tries=MAX_TRIES

The number of attempts at fingerprint authentication to try before returning an authentication failure. The minimum number of tries is 1 while the default is 3.

Use a negative value to set no limit at all, so that the module won't ever error on multiple retries, but in such case it's suggested for the module loader to handle this.

timeout=TIMEOUT

The amount of time before returning an authentication failure. The default timeout is 30 seconds, with 1 second being the minimum.

Use a negative value to set no limit at all, so that fingerprint authentication will be always active while this module is loaded.

Limitations

The PAM stack is by design a serialised authentication, so it is not possible for pam_fprintd to allow authentication through passwords and fingerprints at the same time.

It is up to the application using the PAM services to implement separate PAM processes and run separate authentication stacks separately. This is the way multiple authentication methods are made available to users of gdm for example.

Releases

4 releases since Debian 11 (Bullseye); the text changed 3 times.

  1. 11
  2. 12
  3. 13
  4. Arch

Author

fprintd was written by Bastien Nocera.

From fprintd 1.94.5-2 in Arch Linux 2026-11-01. Parsed by carta from the page's man source.