Pluggable authentication modules (PAM)

[pwilson]

Please join the '90's and actually implement PAM as quickly as possible.

It is already part of both MacOS and Linux, and has been around for more than 15 years. PAM is currently supported in the AIX operating system, DragonFly BSD, FreeBSD, HP-UX, Linux, Mac OS X, NetBSD and Solaris. Using PAM would make it far easier to implement SSO (Single Sign-On) in all kinds of interesting ways. Including using Samba credentials to login to the NAS via SSH etc, which would make NAS shell access far more transparent for Windows users to access the NAS.

You have recently added support for "home" folders in your Windows networking, so home folders with "user login" to the NAS, rather than "admin-only" login via SSH would be far easier to implement from various platforms, if PAM was implemented.

Microsoft is unlikely to ever play nice with the Linux world, (note especially their refusal to offer a built-in "SSH" client in Windows, despite SSH existing for over 30 years now), and the changes in default network security settings introduced in Windows 7, which effectively "broke" Windows access to non-Microsoft SMB Servers, with no added benefit to the End-User). With the direction Microsoft seems determined to take Windows in, I'm assuming the number of Linux and Mac users can only continue to grow in the near future.

Patrick.

[dchang0]

I second this motion.

Here's the deal--we're trying to use QNAP NASes as "intermediaries" between Windows and LINUX. The Windows boxes can get to the NAS shares via CIFS. The LINUX boxes need SFTP/SSH AND want to be able to use Active Directory user accounts.

That means that we need OpenSSH installed on the QNAP (which can be done, but by hand), and we need PAM support for OpenSSH to use LDAP to get to Active Directory (easier than going Kerberos 5 + GSSAPI, which would also get us the same result).

QNAP, please, please incorporate PAM into your standard firmware!

[doktornotor]

Long overdue indeed.

[geva]

+1

I'm slowly moving away from Windows, but the Linux NAS is currently the centerpiece which I've frequently been using to bridge things together.

That said, if QNAP doesn't step up to the plate on many of these basic Linux staples, I'll just be building my own Linux systems and get away from their NASes entirely (or go to Synology).