Finding were max eight char. password is set in SUSE Linux v.8

[Juan Gonzalez_2]

I inhereited a HP Proliant server with SUSE Linux 8. All the user passwords have a max limit of eight characters. I would like to change that to 10 characters. I have looked in /etc/security/access.conf, /etc/security/limit.conf, /etc/security/pam_unix2.conf, /etc/security/pam_pwcheck.conf, /etc/default/useradd, and some other places which I do not remember rigt now.

Can anyone help point me in the right direction?

Thanks

[Vitaly Karasik_1]

It seems like you suse box uses crypt() and not MD5 for storing passwords.
what do you see in the second field your /etc/shadow file - are there about 10 or about 30 characters ?

[Philippe Vervoort]

Hello,

If you have a SLES8 server, do it the easy way; use YaST.
Open YaST2 Control Center, select Security and Users on the left and then in the right panel select Security settings. This will open a new window. If you then select Custom settings and click Next, you are able to change all password settings, including the length !


Greetings,
Philippe

[Juan Gonzalez_2]

Vitaly Karasik,

There are 13 characters in the shadow file.

Philippe Vervoort,

I know how to see the password lenght through Yast but I need to know what file is the password lenght stored at so I can run a script to extract it and report that to management.

Juan Gonzalez

[Juan Gonzalez_2]

Vitaly,

Using DES incryption.

Juan Gonzalez

[Juan Gonzalez_2]

I figure out what file to modify.

[Vitaly Karasik_1]

>I figure out what file to modify.

Can you say us?

[Juan Gonzalez_2]

Vitaly,

It is /etc/login.defs file.

Juan Gonzalez

[Vitaly Karasik_1]

AFAIK, if *nix box uses "old" algoritm (crypt()?) for storing passwords [and this is your case, as far as I understand], there is 8-characters limit. Well, user can use 20 characters for his/her password, but *unix really use only 8 first.