1PWQUALITY.CONF(5) File Formats Manual PWQUALITY.CONF(5)
2
6 pwquality.conf - configuration for the libpwquality library
7
9 /etc/security/pwquality.conf
10 /etc/security/pwquality.conf.d/*.conf
12
14 pwquality.conf provides a way to configure the default password quality
15 requirements for the system passwords. This file is read by the
16 libpwquality library and utilities that use this library for checking
17 and generating passwords.
18 The file has a very simple name = value format with possible comments
20 starting with "#" character. The whitespace at the beginning of line,
21 end of line, and around the "=" sign is ignored.
22 The libpwquality library also first reads all *.conf files from the
24 /etc/security/pwquality.conf.d directory in ASCII sorted order. The
25 values of the same settings are overriden in the order the files are
26 parsed.
27
29 The possible options in the file are:
30 difok
32 Number of characters in the new password that must not be present
33 in the old password. (default 1)
34 The special value of 0 disables all checks of similarity of the new
36 password with the old password except the new password being
37 exactly the same as the old one.
38 minlen
40 Minimum acceptable size for the new password (plus one if credits
41 are not disabled which is the default). (See pam_pwquality(8).)
42 Cannot be set to lower value than 6. (default 8)
43 dcredit
45 The maximum credit for having digits in the new password. If less
46 than 0 it is the minimum number of digits in the new password.
47 (default 0)
48 ucredit
50 The maximum credit for having uppercase characters in the new
51 password. If less than 0 it is the minimum number of uppercase
52 characters in the new password. (default 0)
53 lcredit
55 The maximum credit for having lowercase characters in the new
56 password. If less than 0 it is the minimum number of lowercase
57 characters in the new password. (default 0)
58 ocredit
60 The maximum credit for having other characters in the new password.
61 If less than 0 it is the minimum number of other characters in the
62 new password. (default 0)
63 minclass
65 The minimum number of required classes of characters for the new
66 password (digits, uppercase, lowercase, others). (default 0)
67 maxrepeat
69 The maximum number of allowed same consecutive characters in the
70 new password. The check is disabled if the value is 0. (default 0)
71 maxsequence
73 The maximum length of monotonic character sequences in the new
74 password. Examples of such sequence are '12345' or 'fedcb'. Note
75 that most such passwords will not pass the simplicity check unless
76 the sequence is only a minor part of the password. The check is
77 disabled if the value is 0. (default 0)
78 maxclassrepeat
80 The maximum number of allowed consecutive characters of the same
81 class in the new password. The check is disabled if the value is
82 0. (default 0)
83 gecoscheck
85 If nonzero, check whether the words longer than 3 characters from
86 the GECOS field of the user's passwd(5) entry are contained in the
87 new password. The check is disabled if the value is 0. (default 0)
88 dictcheck
90 If nonzero, check whether the password (with possible
91 modifications) matches a word in a dictionary. Currently the
92 dictionary check is performed using the cracklib library. (default
93 1)
94 usercheck=N
96 If nonzero, check whether the password (with possible
97 modifications) contains the user name in some form. It is not
98 performed for user names shorter than 3 characters. (default 1)
99 enforcing=N
101 If nonzero, reject the password if it fails the checks, otherwise
102 only print the warning. This setting applies only to the
103 pam_pwquality module and possibly other applications that
104 explicitly change their behavior based on it. It does not affect
105 pwmake(1) and pwscore(1). (default 1)
106 badwords
108 Space separated list of words that must not be contained in the
109 password. These are additional words to the cracklib dictionary
110 check. This setting can be also used by applications to emulate the
111 gecos check for user accounts that are not created yet.
112 dictpath
114 Path to the cracklib dictionaries. Default is to use the cracklib
115 default.
116
118 pwscore(1), pwmake(1), pam_pwquality(8)
119
121 Tomas Mraz <tmraz@redhat.com>
122Red Hat, Inc. 2017-05-26 PWQUALITY.CONF(5)