[PLUG] login weirdness

[Bill Barry]

On Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 1:40 AM, Russell Senior <seniorr at aracnet.com> wrote:
>>>>>> "Bill" == Bill Barry <barryb at proaxis.com> writes:
>
> Bill> The package was libpam-runtime the top of whose changelog
> Bill> /usr/share/doc/libpam-runtime/changelog.Debian.gz says pam
> Bill> (1.0.1-7) unstable; urgency=low
>
> Bill> I updated the package on 3/3/2009. I don't remember answering
> Bill> any questions about keeping the current config files, or using
> Bill> the package config files, but it's possible I answered such a
> Bill> question the wrong way. Either way, it would have been nice of
> Bill> it to leave my login system working correctly.
>
> Does this look familiar?
>
>  # dpkg-reconfigure libpam-runtime
>  Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM) determine how authentication,
>  authorization, and password changing are handled on the system, as well as
>  allowing configuration of additional actions to take when starting user
>  sessions.
>
>  Some PAM module packages provide profiles that can be used to automatically
>  adjust the behavior of all PAM-using applications on the system.  Please
>  indicate which of these behaviors you wish to enable.
>
>    1. Unix authentication  2. none of the above
>
>  (Enter the items you want to select, separated by spaces.)
>
>  PAM profiles to enable:
>
> Pressing enter with nothing in "PAM profiles to enable" disables
> passwords.  Selecting "1" enables normal Unix passwords.
>
>
> --
> Russell Senior         ``I have nine fingers; you have ten.''
> seniorr at aracnet.com


That does look familiar.  In a normal Debian package hitting enter at
this point would keep the current configuration.  In this case hitting
enter disables passwords.  I wonder why that is the default or even a
choice?

Bill