5. Authentication Logging

Authentication logging can be very useful to look at if you are having issues logging in.

/var/log/auth.log

This contains system authorization logs, such as user login and the authentication method used.

Sample snippet:


Jan 31 10:37:50 icebox pkexec: pam_unix(polkit-1:session): session opened for user root by (uid=1000)

Exercises

Do some failed logins and then a successful one, look at your /var/log/auth.log and see what happened.

Quiz

What log is used for user authentication?