If you want to play with PAM, the best thing to do is to create a test program which links to the PAM library and which uses a different PAM service name so you

If you want to play with PAM, the best thing to do is to create a test program which links to the PAM library and which uses a different PAM service name so you can play with a config file which is different from the ones which ssh, su, sudo, etc., rely upon. That way you don't have to worry about screwing up your system and not having a way to recover. An example of such a test program can be found at http://pamtester.sourceforge.net http://pamtester.sourceforge.net. I haven't tried using it myself, but I have taken a quick look at the source code, and it appears legit, if a bit over-engineered. Creating a test driver program which links against libpam really isn't all that complex, especially if you use the "configure the program by editing /tmp/foo.c and recompiling" methodology. :-)