If I typing the first 8 chars of a the login password I gain access to the system. can someone tell me please where can I disable this option to only allow users to enter the full password.

thanks,

Sounds like you might be running an ancient version of the Shadow programs.

Password length is likely set in /etc/login.defs:

Easiest thing is to update the shadow package using your distro tools. Fallback option is to compile shadow yourself and make sure the right options get set in building and in login.defs. Note that there's a few other login programs around, such as the one that can be built in util-linux, but probably you are not running that.

I am running redhat WS 3.0 and shadow-utils-4.0.3-15 which is fairly new. I looked at the /etc/login.defs there was no option for PASS_MAX_LEN.

any other idea. thanks for trying.

what authentication method are you using?
if you are networked then the password length is set by the authentication for the domain server, such as NIS authentication.

if the basic authentication then it is a setting in password or shadow utilities.

this is an odd problem, since most distros went to a full 255 character password option after they adopted the 2.4 kernel.
[ Vector and few other small distros have similar issues, Vector doesn't [ at least with the last version I checked ] recognise anything after a space character in a password. ]

I am using ldap and samba. but in this case I am simply ssh to the machine as root. so i am doing local authentication. I will take a look at passwd and shadow.

thanks for your reply.

the system was using old DES56 hashes (preinstall) instead of MD5 which limits the password to 8 char. changing password renabled the MD5 for longer passwds.

problem solved.

thanks all.