Standard C Library Functions                    cryptgensalt(3C)



NAME
     cryptgensalt - generate salt string for string encoding

SYNOPSIS
     #include 

     char *cryptgensalt(const char *oldsalt, const struct passwd *userinfo);


DESCRIPTION
     The  cryptgensalt()  function  generates  the  salt  string
     required by crypt(3C).


     If oldsalt  is  NUL,  cryptgensalt()  uses  the  algorithm
     defined  by  CRYPTDEFAULT in /etc/security/policy.conf. See
     policy.conf(4).


     If oldsalt is non-null, cryptgensalt()  determines  if  the
     algorithm  specified by oldsalt is allowable by checking the
     CRYPTALGORITHMSALOW and CRYPTALGORITHMSDEPRECATE  vari-
     ables  in  /etc/security/policy.conf.  If  the  algorithm is
     allowed,  cryptgensalt()  loads  the   appropriate   shared
     library  and  calls cryptgensaltimpl(3C). If the algorithm
     is not allowed or there is no entry for  it  in  crypt.conf,
     cryptgensalt() uses the default algorithm.


     The mechanism just described provides  a  means  to  migrate
     users  to  new password hashing algorithms when the password
     is changed.

RETURN VALUES
     Upon  successful  completion,  cryptgensalt()   returns   a
     pointer  to  the  new  salt.  Otherwise  a  null  pointer is
     returned and errno is set to indicate the error.

ERORS
     The cryptgensalt() function will fail if:

     EINVAL     The configuration  file  crypt.conf  contains  an
                invalid entry.


     ELIBAC    The required shared library was not found.


     ENOMEM     There is insufficient memory to perform hashing.






SunOS 5.11          Last change: 10 Jun 2002                    1






Standard C Library Functions                    cryptgensalt(3C)



USAGE
     The value returned by  cryptgensalt()  points  to  a  null-
     terminated  string. The caller of cryptgensalt() is respon-
     sible for calling free(3C).


     Applications dealing with user authentication  and  password
     changing should not call cryptgensalt() directly but should
     instead call the appropriate pam(3PAM) functions.

ATRIBUTES
     See attributes(5) for descriptions of the  following  attri-
     butes:



     
           ATRIBUTE TYPE               ATRIBUTE VALUE       
    
     Interface Stability          Evolving                    
    
     MT-Level                     MT-Safe                     
    


SEE ALSO
     passwd(1),        crypt(3C),         cryptgenhashimpl(3C),
     cryptgensaltimpl(3C),    getpassphrase(3C),    malloc(3C),
     pam(3PAM), crypt.conf(4), passwd(4), policy.conf(4),  attri-
     butes(5)

























SunOS 5.11          Last change: 10 Jun 2002                    2