[SOLVED] Enforcing password complexity in ubuntu

computerman1983 · 04-09-2010, 02:24 PM

I must be losing it because I can't seem to find my answer on the google mechine. I need to enforce password complexity in ubuntu. I need min length, upper case, number and or special characters. I don't want to have to install pam_cracklib on all these boxes. I have looked at he common-password and it's not much help. Thanks for any help you can give.

AlucardZero · 04-10-2010, 07:11 AM

The pam_unix.so module can enforce a minimum character length, and the obscure option enforces complexity "based on the length of the password and the number of different types of characters (alpha, numeric, etc.) used".

Code:

man pam_unix

anomie · 04-12-2010, 03:45 PM

I've used both pam_cracklib (rather cryptic) and pam_passwdqc (more straightforward) for this purpose. If you can't afford to install either, you're probably going to be tweaking pam_unix (as noted above). That should certainly be in place already.