OK ... the answer to my problem is to manually touch a file called /etc/security/opasswd
Now pam.d remembers the old passwords and I don't get any of the errors I noted above.
Thanks goes to Neowulf in his
post and follow-ups that he made :-)
Now ... the next problem to solve is the tally thing. I can still login after making 7 or more failed attempts.
-- --------- UPDATE ANSWER ----------- --
OK ... the answer to the tally thing is to first touch a file called /var/log/faillog. Then take out the tally entries in the "passwd" (because they do not work in the passwd file) and put them into the /etc/pam.d/system-auth file.
The system-auth file WILL get overwritten if you happen to use the GUI at a later date ... so you should also put the tally lines in /etc/pam.d/login and /etc/pam.d/sshd .... I wonder where else?
I now have tally working correctly and the remember thing working just fine ;-)
-- Tony