Date: Thu, 19 Mar 1998 18:37:24 -0500 (EST) From: Robert Watson <robert@cyrus.watson.org> To: Tom <tom@uniserve.com> Cc: Richard Stanaford <richard@cube3.erinet.com>, "Randy A. Katz" <randyk@ccsales.com>, questions@FreeBSD.ORG, freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Password Characters Not Required??? Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.3.96.980319183112.12515B-100000@trojanhorse.pr.watson.org> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.3.96.980319151824.21872A-100000@shell.uniserve.com>
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On Thu, 19 Mar 1998, Tom wrote:
> > > Indeed it is normal. FreeBSD takes only the first 8 significant
> > > characters and then truncates the rest. This is not FreeBSD specific.
> > > BSDI is the same way, along with Solaris and other flavors of Unix, I
> > > believe.
> >
> > However, BSD/OS allows you to modify the max password length for
> > userclasses, up to 128 characters I think? Similarly, the password
>
> This is for user entry purposes. FreeBSD has it to. It has nothing to
> do with how many password characters might be significant.
Actually, I believe it does actually reflect significant characters. On a
BSD/OS 3.1 machine, we have the max password length turned way up, and
shorter passwords (but above 16 char, say) just don't cut it. These
really are significant characters :).
>From BSD/OS login.conf(0):
widepasswords bool false Use the new wide password
format when using the
passwd(1) utility. The
wide password format al-
lows up to 128 signifi-
cant characters in the
password.
Sounds fun to me. Definitely not good in a mixed-OS passwd environment,
but good for plain BSD machines. :)
> > behavior here is a function of the crypt() used -- with Kerberos, you get
> > whatever the Kerberos behavior is -- it certainly has more significant
> > characters, however. I would personally like to see change in behavior
> > here, perhaps as a login.conf option similar to BSD/OS. I don't see one
> > in the -stable login.conf man page, however.
>
> md5 also has more significant characters (16 I believe). In many ways,
> the "secure" (DES) distribution is actually less secure than the default
> md5.
Yes, it is 16 characters.
Robert N Watson
Carnegie Mellon University http://www.cmu.edu/
SafePort Network Services http://www.safeport.com/
robert@fledge.watson.org http://www.watson.org/~robert/
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