user account logon from python

[Philippe C. Martin]

Jeff,

1- I cannot find getpwent in the documentation
2- crypt will not work if the system does not have shadow pw
3- Even as root I get "Operation not permitted" using setuid and setgid ...
but I assume it is because I cannot get 1 and/or 2 to work.

Can you direct me to some link that would explain the actual procedure ?

Thanks,

Regards,

Philippe



jepler at unpythonic.net wrote:

> "login APIs" vary widely from system to system.
> 
> Classic Unix systems use calls like getpwent and crypt to check passwords,
> and then call setuid, setgid and setgroups to set the identity of the user
> who is
> logging in.  These are all available in stock Python, check the library
> reference for more details.  Other login-time activities, like writing
> utmp entries, may not be directly available in stock Python modules.
> 
> Many modern Linux systems use something called 'pam' for login-related
> activities, and there seems to be something called 'python-pam' out there,
> but I've never used it.
> 
> Graphical login managers have their own additional requirements, such as
> starting and stopping the X server, managing the X authentication
> information, etc.
> 
> Jeff