root password

gazza · 11-02-2003, 06:13 AM

Ive just reinstalled suse 8.2 and i enetered to the root password which was (eg) "huklinsdsde64571"
but when i su to root and enter just the first part of the pass, (without the numbers) it still gives me root access ?

Why is this ?

tia

druuna · 11-02-2003, 06:22 AM

Take a look at the /etc/login.defs file, especially the PASS_MAX_LEN option. Anything longer then the value set here will be ignored.

Also accessible by yast2:

yast - security and users -> security settings -> next

gazza · 11-02-2003, 06:30 AM

ah thats the problem by the looks of it the max is 8

Can i just change that number using vi to make it larger, say.....15 ?

and if so will i need to change anything else anywhere ?

dont want to cause any conflicts......just got thongs back to normal

tia

druuna · 11-02-2003, 07:51 AM

It depends.

crypt() uses 8 chars if I'm not mistaken. I use md5 encryption, which does not have a 8 char limit.

#----------------------------------------------------------------------------#
# Number of significant characters in the password for crypt().
# Default is 8, don't change unless your crypt() is better.
# Ignored if the "md5" or "blowfish" option is given to the
# pam_pwcheck module.

PASS_MAX_LEN 20

Hope this will help