Re: passwd

[Ben Collins <bcollins@debian.org>]

On Mon, Oct 25, 1999 at 09:35:23PM +0200, Vincent Deffontaines wrote:
> I just found out something I find freak on my debian 2.1 system
> 
> My root password   used to be "panoramix2021"...
> Today by mistake I typed "panoramix", and got in!!!
> 
> how comes? is that normal? I dont find it normal actually
> is that a bug? is that supposed to be working that way?
> how many characteers are passwords supposed to be limited by??? 9???

Normal crypt() passwords are only unique to 8 digits. For longer
passwords, edit /etc/login.defs to enable MD5 passwords, then change your
password again (to reencrypt with MD5). It's not a bug, it is normal.

Ben