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Is it possible to have more than one password simultaneously attached to a login account in Linux?

I'd like to be able to add a temporarily-authorized user to an account on my web server, but don't want to have to change the login afterwards.

Is this possible?

Even cooler would be if this could be done with a timer of some kind so the temporary password would auto-die after, say, 24 hours.

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2 Answers

up vote 4 down vote accepted

PAM can do all sorts of awesome auth stuff. That list is probably a bit out of date, so have a look around.

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It is not: PAM updates very rarely, and why authentication framework must be updated often? – whitequark Jun 15 '10 at 5:18
1  
The modules, not the framework... – Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams Jun 15 '10 at 5:28
I'm looking with a new issue from AskUbuntu (server) but the link is dead with a 404 :-( – ObsessiveSSOℲ Jun 19 '12 at 21:43
I suggest changing the link to web.archive.org/web/20110612173211/http://www.kernel.org/pub/… – ObsessiveSSOℲ Jun 19 '12 at 21:49
up vote 2 down vote

OPIE is probably something you would like for your needs. Also, remember that permissions are set based on the User ID, not the login name. So, you can share the same UID of someone else without sharing the same password, login name, home directory and login shell (as well as any other place that let you configure your system without the login shell). PAM as also a very flexible (but complex) system that you can configure to do a lot of weird stuff (like allowing login only from some place at some time, or dual-factor authentication).

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the duplicated uid is not a direction I'd considered yet - thanks :) – warren Jun 20 '12 at 14:07

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