Passwords limited to 8 characters

t3___ · 07-07-2004, 12:55 PM

I would like to change the root password on my suse 9.1 box to an alphanumeric/upperandlower/hard to crack password. Unfortunately when I do so, it says that "passwords are limited to 8 characters, would you like to truncate your password..."

I there a way, post install, to change the password type or schema? I dont remember if I selected MD5, shadow, etc when I installed the box, and know nothing about the topic.

Any help would be greatly appreciated...

comp12345 · 07-07-2004, 01:02 PM

Edit /etc/login.defs. There is an entry called PASS_MAX_LEN

t3___ · 07-07-2004, 01:14 PM

thank you very much for the info.

located the file, but it does not have the PASS_MAX_LEN field.... Im assuming it is safe to add it?

t3___ · 07-08-2004, 12:11 PM

Anyone? is this entry safe to add? Normally I'd just try it, but I'd hate to loser root access on a production box...

thanks

comp12345 · 07-09-2004, 01:28 PM

Sorry, I jumped the gun on PASS_MAX_LEN. I should have read more carefully. PASS_MAX_LEN sets the number of significant characters in the password for crypt().

If you are using PAM, in /etc/pam.d, there is a file called passwd or common-password. On my system, the entry in common-password is

Code:

password   required   pam_unix.so nullok obscure min=4 max=8 md5

Check if you have md5 at the end of your entry. If it is missing, add it and you will be able to have longer password lengths.