Re: Password security/Weak Password lockout

[Mark Allums <mark@allums.com>]

Paul Gupta wrote:
> By what mechanism does debian decide whether or not a password is too 
> weak etc.
>
> I have seen opensuse and perhaps fedora do the same thing during the 
> installation.  It'll spit out a warning saying similar to "This password 
> is too weak, are you sure you want to use it?"
>
> I'm assuming (which I hate to do, which is why I'm asking) that it's 
> using the same thing across all of these different distros.
>
> What is it exactly? AND How would one configure it to be stricter or 
> more lenient with password selection?
>
> Thank you!

It's a heuristic.  I thought everybody made up their own.  I didn't
think that there was a uniform standard.  It would have to change pretty
often.

Basically, all the rules like length, mixed case, no dictionary words,
numerals and special characters encouraged, no birthdays or dates, etc.
  All that stuff rolled into a degree of fitness.  A minimum fitness
required to pass.

Mark Allums