I have the same problem with libpam-unix2 1.25-1.1 and gnome-screensaver 2.17.7-0ubuntu2.
The problem is exactly as described in Debian #295526 above: gnome- screensaver drops any privileges it has by the time it calls into PAM, but pam_unix2 needs to read the hash from the shadow file. The regular pam_unix module calls unix_chkpwd when it discovers this situation. The same solution should work with pam_unix2. If the security implications of this approach are acceptable in pam_unix, they should be here as well. -- problems with libpam-unix2 and gnome-screensaver https://launchpad.net/bugs/82518 -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs