[K12OSN] Password Policy

[Brad Johnson]

On Apr 4, 2006, at 11:52 AM, Toshio Kuratomi wrote:

>
>> On 4/4/06, Brad Johnson <bjohnson at independence.k12.ia.us> wrote:
>>         Fedora
>>         requires them to create a strong password.  Is there any  
>> way I
>>         can
>>         avoid the strong password, and allow them to choose whatever
>>         they want?
> This can be set through pam.  I don't have an FC4 box around right now
> but here are the generic instructions:  First look in /etc/pam.d/ 
> passwd
> If you see a line about cracklib then this is the file you need to  
> edit.
> If not you probably see lines that have pam_stack system-auth or  
> include
> system-auth or similar.  If that is true then you need to
> edit /etc/pam.d/system-auth.  There should be a line about cracklib in
> there.  You can add arguments to the line that enable less secure
> passwords.
>
> The two documentation files you'll want to look at are
> /usr/share/doc/pam-VERSION/txts/README.pam_cracklib (which has a short
> description of every pam_cracklib option)
> and /usr/share/doc/pam-VERSION/txts/pam.txt (which has some useful
> examples.  Search within the file for cracklib and you'll find them.)
>
> Whenever editing pam files be careful.  Pam is a modular system for
> authentication.  If you make a mistake you could find yourself  
> unable to
> login/su/etc.  At minimum, you'll want to 1) make a copy of the files
> you plan on editing so you can quickly restore them. 2) stay logged in
> as root on a terminal until you have verified that you can go to a
> different terminal and login as yourself and su to root.
>
> -Toshio
Thanks for the info.  However I've tried adding some of the arguments  
and it's not working.  Is it possible to turn off the use of cracklib  
entirely?

Thanks

Brad