Which conf file handles password complexity during account creation

[Jeffrey Walton]

On Fri, Oct 23, 2020 at 3:01 PM Broking, Brian R <brb10 at psu.edu> wrote:
>
> It could be pam_pwquality.so
> You may also want to check /etc/security/pwquality.conf
>
> It could also be pam_passwdqc.so  or pam_cracklib.so depending on the system builders choice.
>
> This assumes you are doing local authentication and not using IPA which would have it's own Password Policy.
>
> Good Luck.  Been there and know what you are dealing with.

Thanks. I commented the pam_pwquality.so lines in passwd and
system-auth. I now get "passwd: Authentication token manipulation
error". I guess I went down a rabbit hole.

Does anyone know how to disable complexity requirements? The stuff I
am finding on the web appears outdated. Or, where are the procedures
documented?

Based on mailing list questions and the Unix and Linux Stack Exchange
questions (and views for each question), it looks like about 15,000
people have had problems with this. If each user spends 30 minutes on
the problem, that's 7,500 man-hours wasted. It is probably time the
PAM folks fix the problem.

Jeff