From owner-freebsd-security Tue Nov 19 11:58:29 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-security@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 542B137B406 for ; Tue, 19 Nov 2002 11:58:26 -0800 (PST) Received: from bogslab.ucdavis.edu (bogslab.ucdavis.edu [169.237.68.34]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0796A43ECD for ; Tue, 19 Nov 2002 11:58:23 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from greg@bogslab.ucdavis.edu) Received: from thistle.bogs.org (thistle.bogs.org [198.137.203.61]) by bogslab.ucdavis.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id LAA48303 for ; Tue, 19 Nov 2002 11:58:21 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from greg@bogslab.ucdavis.edu) Received: from thistle.bogs.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by thistle.bogs.org (8.11.3/8.11.3) with ESMTP id gAJJt9Q77865 for ; Tue, 19 Nov 2002 11:55:10 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from greg@thistle.bogs.org) Message-Id: <200211191955.gAJJt9Q77865@thistle.bogs.org> To: security@FreeBSD.ORG X-To: "Robinson, Rick" X-Sender: owner-freebsd-security@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Strong Passwords In-reply-to: Your message of "Tue, 19 Nov 2002 10:26:24 CST." Reply-To: gkshenaut@ucdavis.edu Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2002 11:55:08 -0800 From: Greg Shenaut Sender: owner-freebsd-security@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org In message , "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