16.6. PAM and Administrative Credential Caching

A variety of graphical administrative tools under Red Hat Enterprise Linux give users elevated privileges for up to five minutes via the pam_timestamp.so module. It is important to understand how this mechanism works because a user who walks away from a terminal while pam_timestamp.so is in effect leaves the machine open to manipulation by anyone with physical access to the console.

Under the PAM timestamp scheme, the graphical administrative application prompts the user for the root password when it is launched. Once authenticated, the pam_timestamp.so module creates a timestamp file within the /var/run/sudo/ directory by default. If the timestamp file already exists, other graphical administrative programs do not prompt for a password. Instead, the pam_timestamp.so module freshens the timestamp file — reserving an extra five minutes of unchallenged administrative access for the user.

The existence of the timestamp file is denoted by an authentication icon in the notification area of the panel. Below is an illustration of the authentication icon: