Re: Allowing usernames in pg_hba.conf

> > This is definitely stressing pg_hba past its design limits --- heck, the
> > name of the file isn't even appropriate anymore, if usernames are part
> > of the match criteria. Rather than contorting things to maintain a
> > pretense of backwards compatibility, it's time to abandon the current
> > file format, change the name, and start over.
>
> The pg_hba.conf thing is slowly growing to become a bad excuse for a
> completely general authentication system, such as PAM. Instead of
> creating our own, maybe we could rip off the "BSD authentication" system
> from some free *BSD. I haven't seen it, but it's supposed to be like (or
> "better than") PAM.

Hmmm...I've never heard of the "BSD authentication" system...? As far as I
was aware, FreeBSD uses PAM:

man pam

PAM(8) PAM Manual PAM(8)

NAME
PAM - Pluggable Authentication Modules

SYNOPSIS
/etc/pam.conf

DESCRIPTION
This manual is intended to offer a quick introduction to
PAM. For more information the reader is directed to the
Linux-PAM system administrators' guide.

PAM Is a system of libraries that handle the authentica-
tion tasks of applications (services) on the system. The
library provides a stable general interface (Application
Programming Interface - API) that privilege granting pro-
grams (such as login(1) and su(1)) defer to to perform
standard authentication tasks.

...

Chris