MDCS Job Security Level 3 and PAM

I am using MATLAB MDCS R2011b (64-bit Linux) with Job Security enabled. Level 2 works perfectly, but Level 3 does not. USE_SECURE_COMMUNICATION is enabled and works with Level 2. When validating my job manager configuration within the MATLAB Client under Level 3, I keep getting the error "invalid username or password" after supplying a valid password for the currently logged in user account. The user account exists on all cluster nodes and is working.

I heard that MDCS is accessing /etc/shadow directly. But we are using ADS / LDAP for storing users and passwords, so the corresponding user account entries are definitely not stored locally on any of the MDCS nodes.

How can I configure MDCS to use PAM for user authentication? Is there a way to configure this behaviour at all?

[David]

This issue is still not resolved in R2014a on 64-bit Redhat Linux.

Using local system users for Security Level 3 works fine, but PAM users (in our case Quest VAS users from Active Directory) do not. These users are usable for all other purposes on the hosts (ie login, ssh, su, sudo etc)..

Answer 1

[Jason Ross]

First, the basics: For Level 3 to work, the following need to be set in mdce_def

• SECURITY_LEVEL=3
• USE_SECURE_COMMUNICATION=true
• SHARED_SECRET_FILE=<location of secret file>

I believe you have two of those set correctly, but check the third and verify that the file can be seen on all cluster nodes.

Beyond that, this question is likely better handled via regular support.

[David]

I have the same issue as described in the question, but since local users work fine, the settings in mdce_def must be correct.