Openwall tcb suite

If you're in need of a powerful password shadowing scheme, the Openwall tcb suite package is worth considering. This package includes the core components of our tcb suite, which are an alternative to the default password shadowing scheme on Owl.

Interestingly, this package is being made available separately from Owl, primarily for use by other distributions. It's important to note that you'll need to have the password hashing framework introduced with crypt_blowfish patched into glibc to compile and use this package.

The Openwall tcb suite package consists of three components: pam_tcb, libnss_tcb, and libtcb. Pam_tcb is a PAM module that supersedes pam_unix, and also implements the tcb password shadowing scheme. The tcb scheme allows many core system utilities (such as passwd(1)) to operate with little privilege, which can be incredibly convenient.

In addition to pam_tcb, the package also includes libnss_tcb. This is the accompanying NSS module and is used alongside Pam_tcb. Likewise, libtcb contains code shared by the PAM and NSS modules and is also used by user management tools on Owl due to our shadow suite patches.

Overall, if you're looking for a powerful password shadowing scheme, the Openwall tcb suite package is an excellent option to consider. Its various components work together seamlessly to provide robust password shadowing capabilities that can be used by other distributions.