Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2002 11:55:08 -0800 From: Greg Shenaut <greg@bogslab.ucdavis.edu> To: security@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Strong Passwords Message-ID: <200211191955.gAJJt9Q77865@thistle.bogs.org> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 19 Nov 2002 10:26:24 CST." <AFB399ACC132D511A0F700508B6FC8D201579702@mail.bankofamerica.com>
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In message <AFB399ACC132D511A0F700508B6FC8D201579702@mail.bankofamerica.com>, "Robinson, Rick" cleopede: >Can anyone suggest what the best way to enforce strong passwords on a >FreeBSD system is? We would like to add the functionality to our system to >require users to have at least one alpha character and one numeric character >in their passwords. And if possible also require them to use special >characters in their passwords. I know we can try password cracking as a way >to ensure strong passwords, but I think we want to go with a more proactive >approach. > >I looked at the login.conf man page, but it looks like the only option >available is to require mixed case passwords. I also looked briefly at >Npasswd+, but had trouble getting that to compile on FreeBSD. Any >suggestions you might have would be greatly appreciated. I think the most straightforward way would be to hack your copy of /usr/src/usr.bin/passwd/local_passwd.c to enforce whatever you want. If you go in there, you will probably also notice that the "requirements" of minimum length and not-all-lower-case can be overridden by persistent users--this "kindness" you could, of course, get rid of as well. Actually, I suppose someone could add a new login-conf flag called "nopasswordmercy" or something that enforced minpasswordlen and mixpasswordcase much more strictly than presently--maybe others would find this useful??? Greg Shenaut To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-security" in the body of the message
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