---
name: "pam_tty_audit"
section: "8"
platform: "linux"
package: "pam"
version: "1.7.3-1"
release: "Arch Linux 2026-11-01"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/pam_tty_audit"
---

# pam\_tty\_audit(8)

Enable or disable TTY auditing for specified users

## NAME

pam\_tty\_audit - Enable or disable TTY auditing for specified users

## SYNOPSIS

**pam\_tty\_audit.so** \[disable=*patterns*\] \[enable=*patterns*\]

## DESCRIPTION

The pam\_tty\_audit PAM module is used to enable or disable TTY auditing. By default, the kernel does not audit input on any TTY.

## OPTIONS

disable=patterns

For each user matching *patterns*, disable TTY auditing. This overrides any previous **enable** option matching the same user name on the command line. See NOTES for further description of *patterns*.

enable=patterns

For each user matching *patterns*, enable TTY auditing. This overrides any previous **disable** option matching the same user name on the command line. See NOTES for further description of *patterns*.

open\_only

Set the TTY audit flag when opening the session, but do not restore it when closing the session. Using this option is necessary for some services that don't **fork()** to run the authenticated session, such as **sudo**.

log\_passwd

Log keystrokes when ECHO mode is off but ICANON mode is active. This is the mode in which the tty is placed during password entry. By default, passwords are not logged. This option may not be available on older kernels (3.9?).

## MODULE TYPES PROVIDED

Only the **session** type is supported.

## RETURN VALUES

PAM\_SESSION\_ERR

Error reading or modifying the TTY audit flag. See the system log for more details.

PAM\_SUCCESS

Success.

## NOTES

When TTY auditing is enabled, it is inherited by all processes started by that user. In particular, daemons restarted by a user will still have TTY auditing enabled, and audit TTY input even by other users unless auditing for these users is explicitly disabled. Therefore, it is recommended to use **disable=\*** as the first option for most daemons using PAM.

To view the data that was logged by the kernel to audit use the command **aureport --tty**.

The *patterns* are comma separated lists of glob patterns or ranges of uids. A range is specified as *min\_uid*:*max\_uid* where one of these values can be empty. If *min\_uid* is empty only user with the uid *max\_uid* will be matched. If *max\_uid* is empty users with the uid greater than or equal to *min\_uid* will be matched.

Please note that passwords in some circumstances may be logged by TTY auditing even if the **log\_passwd** is not used. For example, all input to an ssh session will be logged - even if there is a password being typed into some software running at the remote host because only the local TTY state affects the local TTY auditing.

## EXAMPLES

Audit all administrative actions.

```
session	required pam_tty_audit.so disable=* enable=root
```

## SEE ALSO

[**aureport**(8)](/aureport/8.md), [**pam.conf**(5)](/pam.conf/5.md), [**pam.d**(5)](/pam.d/5.md), [**pam**(8)](/pam/8.md)

## AUTHOR

pam\_tty\_audit was written by Miloslav Trmač \<mitr@redhat.com\>. The log\_passwd option was added by Richard Guy Briggs \<rgb@redhat.com\>.