About the authselect Utility

You configure authentication on the system using the authselect utility. The authselect utility manages system authentication profiles and is included in any Oracle Linux installation.

The authselect utility consists of the following components:

  • The authselect command, which manages authentication profiles and their features. Only users with the appropriate administrator privileges can run this command.

  • The profiles themselves, that enforce specific authentication mechanisms. These profiles include those supplied by Oracle, provided by vendors, or created by an organization.

The authselect utility stores these different profiles in separate directories:

  • /usr/share/authselect/default contains the profiles provided by Oracle Linux.

  • /usr/share/authselect/vendor contains the profiles that are provided by vendors. These profiles can override those that are in the default directory.

  • /etc/authselect/custom contains any custom profiles you create.

Important:

The authselect utility applies the selected profile. However, authselect doesn't configure the service on which the profile is based. Consult the appropriate documentation to configure the profile's service. You must also ensure that the service is started and enabled.

For more details about the authselect utility, see the authselect(8) manual page.