This module allows to use YaST to manage local and LDAP users and groups. It also makes possible to configure some aspects of the system related to user management and authentication. For a partial description of what this module can do, check the use-cases document. For an overview on how all the authentication-related YaST modules fit together, check doc/auth-modules.md.
Many components of the module were written in the Perl programming language a long time ago.
Although those components still work, they follow approaches that are not longer considered to be
appropriate. For example, they manage important files like /etc/passwd or home directories on
their own, instead of delegating those tasks to the tools included in the operating system like
those contained in the shadow package. The functionality and internal structure of those legacy
components is described at doc/users.html. Although that document is outdated in
some areas, it's still useful to understand how the module works in general and to have some extra
overview about the use-cases it covers (in addition to those described in the document mentioned
above).
The module is currently being rewritten in Ruby in an attempt to make it more maintainable and
better integrated with other components of the system. This is still a work in progress and both the
old Perl components and the new Ruby ones (grouped on the namespace Y2Users) are usually involved
in every operation. Apart from the mentioned documents, the doc directory contains several files
describing how both the old Perl and the new Ruby components work and the correspondences between
them.