Bug 742402

Summary:	missing pam module documentation
Product:	[Fedora] Fedora	Reporter:	JW <ohtmvyyn>
Component:	fprintd	Assignee:	Bastien Nocera <bnocera>
Status:	CLOSED UPSTREAM	QA Contact:	Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity:	unspecified	Docs Contact:
Priority:	unspecified
Version:	17	CC:	bnocera
Target Milestone:	---	Keywords:	Reopened
Target Release:	---
Hardware:	Unspecified
OS:	Unspecified
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	Bug Fix
Doc Text:		Story Points:	---
Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:	2013-02-19 11:07:48 UTC	Type:	---
Regression:	---	Mount Type:	---
Documentation:	---	CRM:
Verified Versions:		Category:	---
oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team:	---	Target Upstream Version:

Description JW 2011-09-30 01:28:38 UTC

Description of problem:
Unlike all other pam modules, fprintd inserts a pam module without corresponding documentation.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
fprintd-0.2.0-3

How reproducible:
Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. man pam_fprintd
2. man -k pam_

  
Actual results:
1. <empty>
2. lots of output, except no pam_fprintd(8)

Expected results:
1. pam_fprintd           (8)  - something about fingerprints

Additional info:
System admin finds strange module in /etc/pam.d/system-auth-ac and wastes an hour trying to figure out what pam_fprintd.so is and where it came from.  

Firstly, the name of the module is ridiculous (fprintf, printf, normally means something quite different) ... how about something more sensible like fingerprintd?  Why abbreviate the most significant part of the name (finger) and truncate the less significant part of the name (print)? Why abbreviate it at all?

Secondly, why not just clone a manual page like pam_rootok(8) and create pam_fingerprintd(8) (or pam_fprintd(8)).

Thirdly, security provided via pam becomes a joke when a module is installed without any documentation.  This softens admins up to accept the existence of undocumented modules referenced by /etc/pam.d configs as something normal. Bad idea!

Comment 1 Fedora End Of Life 2012-08-07 15:27:51 UTC

This message is a notice that Fedora 15 is now at end of life. Fedora
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Comment 2 JW 2012-08-08 00:03:02 UTC

still a problem

Comment 3 Bastien Nocera 2013-02-19 11:07:48 UTC

File feature requests upstream please:
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=libfprint