Pluggable Authentication Module is an authentication framework used in Unix systems. In SSH Tectia, support for PAM is enabled as a submethod of keyboard-interactive authentication.

When PAM is used, SSH Tectia Server transfers the control of authentication to the PAM library, which will then load the modules specified in the PAM configuration file. Finally, the PAM library tells SSH Tectia Server whether or not the authentication was successful. SSH Tectia Server is not aware of the details of the actual authentication method employed by PAM. Only the final result is of interest.