pam_rootok(8)

pam_rootok8

Gain only root access

Usage

pam_rootok.so [debug]

Overview

pam_rootok is a PAM module that authenticates the user if their UID is 0. Applications that are created setuid-root generally retain the UID of the user but run with the authority of an enhanced effective-UID. It is the real UID that is checked.

Options

debug

Print debug information.

Module types provided

The auth, account and password module types are provided.

Return values

PAM_SUCCESS

The UID is 0.

PAM_AUTH_ERR

The UID is not 0.

Examples

In the case of the su(1) application the historical usage is to permit the superuser to adopt the identity of a lesser user without the use of a password. To obtain this behavior with PAM the following pair of lines are needed for the corresponding entry in the /etc/pam.d/su configuration file:

# su authentication. Root is granted access by default.
auth  sufficient   pam_rootok.so
auth  required     pam_unix.so

Releases

12 releases since Debian 1.3 (Bo); the text changed 9 times.

  1. 1.3–2.0
  2. 5.0
  3. 6.0
  4. 7
  5. 8–9
  6. 10
  7. 11
  8. 12
  9. 13
  10. Arch

Author

pam_rootok was written by Andrew G. Morgan, <[email protected]>.

From pam 1.7.3-1 in Arch Linux 2026-11-01. Parsed by carta from the page's man source.