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| 8 | |
| 9 | <title>Courier Authentication Library</title> |
| 10 | </head> |
| 11 | |
| 12 | <body> |
| 13 | <h1>Courier Authentication Library</h1> |
| 14 | |
| 15 | <p>Download: <a target="_blank" href= |
| 16 | "http://www.courier-mta.org/download.html#authlib">http://www.courier-mta.org/download.html#authlib</a></p> |
| 17 | |
| 18 | <h2>Overview</h2> |
| 19 | |
| 20 | <p>The Courier authentication library provides authentication |
| 21 | services for other Courier applications. In this context, the |
| 22 | term "authentication" refers to the following functions:</p> |
| 23 | |
| 24 | <ol> |
| 25 | <li>Take a userid or a loginid, and a password. Determine |
| 26 | whether the loginid and the password are valid.</li> |
| 27 | |
| 28 | <li>Given a userid, obtain the following information about the |
| 29 | userid: |
| 30 | |
| 31 | <ol type="A"> |
| 32 | <li>The account's home directory.</li> |
| 33 | |
| 34 | <li>The numeric system userid and groupid that owns all |
| 35 | files associated with this account.</li> |
| 36 | |
| 37 | <li>The location of the account's maildir.</li> |
| 38 | |
| 39 | <li>Any maildir quota defined for this account. See the |
| 40 | Courier documentation for more information on maildir |
| 41 | quotas.</li> |
| 42 | |
| 43 | <li>Other miscellaneous account-specific options.</li> |
| 44 | </ol> |
| 45 | </li> |
| 46 | |
| 47 | <li>Change the password associated with a loginid.</li> |
| 48 | |
| 49 | <li>Obtain a complete list of all login ids.</li> |
| 50 | </ol> |
| 51 | |
| 52 | <p>The Courier authentication library provides alternative |
| 53 | implementations of these authentication services:</p> |
| 54 | |
| 55 | <ol> |
| 56 | <li>Use the traditional system password files: |
| 57 | <code>/etc/passwd</code> and <code>/etc/shadow</code>, possibly |
| 58 | in conjunction with the PAM library.</li> |
| 59 | |
| 60 | <li>Maintain all this information in a GDBM or a DB database. |
| 61 | The GDBM or the DB database is compiled from plain text files. |
| 62 | Perl scripts provide a simple interface for creating and |
| 63 | editing the authentication information, then a script compiles |
| 64 | the plain text files into a database.</li> |
| 65 | |
| 66 | <li>Use an LDAP server for authentication.</li> |
| 67 | |
| 68 | <li>Use a table in a MySQL database for authentication.</li> |
| 69 | |
| 70 | <li>Use a table in a PostgreSQL database for |
| 71 | authentication.</li> |
| 72 | |
| 73 | <li>Use a table in an SQLite file for authentication.</li> |
| 74 | </ol> |
| 75 | |
| 76 | <p>All Courier components that use this authentication library, |
| 77 | therefore, will be able to authenticate E-mail accounts using any |
| 78 | of the above methods.</p> |
| 79 | |
| 80 | <p>Additional information can be found in the <a href= |
| 81 | "INSTALL.html">INSTALL</a> file.</p> |
| 82 | |
| 83 | <p>The authentication API is <a href= |
| 84 | "authlib.html">documented</a>.</p> |
| 85 | |
| 86 | <h2>Further resources</h2> |
| 87 | |
| 88 | <p>Subscribe to the <i><a target="_blank" href= |
| 89 | "http://lists.sourceforge.net/mailman/listinfo/courier-users">courier-users</a></i> |
| 90 | mailing list. Go to |
| 91 | <code>http://lists.sourceforge.net/mailman/listinfo/courier-users</code> |
| 92 | to subscribe to <i>courier-users</i>, or send a message to |
| 93 | <code><courier-users-request</code><code>@lists.sourceforge.net></code> |
| 94 | and put "subscribe" in the subject line. Search the list archives |
| 95 | at <a target="_blank" href= |
| 96 | "http://markmail.org/browse/net.sourceforge.lists.courier-users">http://markmail.org/browse/net.sourceforge.lists.courier-users</a>.</p> |
| 97 | </body> |
| 98 | </html> |