Linux keylogin command

Updated: 05/04/2019 by Computer Hope
keylogin command in Linux.

On the Solaris operating system, the keylogin command decrypts and stores a secret key with keyserv.

Description

The keylogin command prompts for a password, and uses it to decrypt the user's secret key. The key is found in the /etc/publickey file. The sources and their look up order are specified in the /etc/nsswitch.conf file. Once decrypted, the user's secret key is stored by the local key server process, keyserv. This stored key is used when issuing requests to any secure RPC services, such as NFS or NIS+. The program keylogout can delete the key stored by keyserv.

keylogin fails if it cannot get the caller's key, or the password given is incorrect. For a new user or host, a new key can be added using newkey, nisaddcred, or nisclient.

If multiple authentication mechanisms are configured for the system, each of the configured mechanism's secret key is decrypted and stored by keyserv. See nisauthconf for information on configuring multiple authentication mechanisms.

Syntax

keylogin [-r]

Options

-r Update the /etc/.rootkey file. This file holds the unencrypted secret key of the superuser. Only the superuser can use this option. It is used so that processes running as superuser can issue authenticated requests without requiring that the administrator explicitly run keylogin as superuser at system startup time. The -r option should be used by the administrator when the host's entry in the publickey database has changed, and the /etc/.rootkey file has become out-of-date with respect to the actual key pair stored in the publickey database. The permissions on the /etc/.rootkey file are such that it can be read and written by the superuser but by no other user on the system.

If multiple authentication mechanisms are configured for the system, each of the configured mechanism's secret keys is stored in the /etc/.rootkey file.

login — Begin a session on a system.