pam_setcred(3)

pam_setcred3

Modify / delete user credentials for an authentication service

Usage

#include <sys/types.h>

#include <security/pam_appl.h>

int

pam_setcred(pam_handle_t *pamh, int flags);

Overview

The pam_setcred() function manages the application's credentials.

The flags argument is the binary or of zero or more of the following values:

PAM_SILENT

Do not emit any messages.

PAM_ESTABLISH_CRED

Establish the credentials of the target user.

PAM_DELETE_CRED

Revoke all established credentials.

PAM_REINITIALIZE_CRED

Fully reinitialise credentials.

PAM_REFRESH_CRED

Refresh credentials.

The latter four are mutually exclusive.

If any other bits are set, pam_setcred() will return PAM_BAD_CONSTANT.

Return values

The pam_setcred() function returns one of the following values:

[PAM_SUCCESS]

Success.

[PAM_ABORT]

General failure.

[PAM_BAD_CONSTANT]

Bad constant.

[PAM_BUF_ERR]

Memory buffer error.

[PAM_CONV_ERR]

Conversation failure.

[PAM_CRED_ERR]

Failed to set user credentials.

[PAM_CRED_EXPIRED]

User credentials have expired.

[PAM_CRED_UNAVAIL]

Failed to retrieve user credentials.

[PAM_PERM_DENIED]

Permission denied.

[PAM_SERVICE_ERR]

Error in service module.

[PAM_SYSTEM_ERR]

System error.

[PAM_USER_UNKNOWN]

Unknown user.

Releases

76 releases since FreeBSD 3.1-RELEASE; the text changed 17 times.

  1. 3.1–4.3
  2. 4.4–4.11
  3. 5.0
  4. 5.1
  5. 5.2–5.2.1
  6. 5.3–5.5
  7. 6.0–6.3
  8. 6.4
  9. 7.0
  10. 7.1–9.1
  11. 9.2
  12. 9.3–10.0
  13. 10.1–11.2
  14. 11.3–11.4
  15. 12.0–12.2
  16. 12.3–13.2
  17. 13.3–14.5
  18. 15.0–16.0

Standards

X/Open Single Sign-On Service (XSSO) - Pluggable Authentication Modules, June 1997.

Authors

The pam_setcred() function and this manual page were developed for the FreeBSD Project by ThinkSec AS and Network Associates Laboratories, the Security Research Division of Network Associates, Inc. under DARPA/SPAWAR contract N66001-01-C-8035 (“CBOSS”), as part of the DARPA CHATS research program.

The OpenPAM library is maintained by Dag-Erling Smørgrav ⟨[email protected]⟩.

From base 16.0-CURRENT-20261027-61c70dc16a79 in FreeBSD 16.0-CURRENT (2026-10-27). Parsed by carta from the page's mdoc source.