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NAME

       FascistCheck - a pro-active password checker library

SYNOPSIS

       #include <crack.h>

       static char const CRACKLIB_DICTPATH[] =  ...;

       extern char const *
       FascistCheck(char const passwd[], char const dictpath[]);

DESCRIPTION

       cracklib  is a library containing the FascistCheck C function which may
       be used in a "passwd" like program.  The idea is simple: try to prevent
       users  from  choosing  passwords  that  could  be guessed by "crack" by
       filtering them out, at source.  cracklib is  an  offshoot  of  the  the
       version 5 of the "crack" software and contains a considerable number of
       ideas nicked from the new software.

       The first formal argument password  is  the  potential  password.   The
       second formal argument dictpath is the full path name + filename prefix
       of the cracklib dictionary database.   FascistCheck  returns  the  NULL
       pointer  for a good password, or a pointer to a diagnostic string if it
       is a weak password.

       The  database  is  in  a  binary  format  generated  by  the  utilities
       crack_mkdict(8)  and  crack_packer(8).  On a Debian system the database
       is  located  in  the  directory  defined   by   the   static   constant
       CRACKLIB_DICTPATH  and  is  set  to  /var/cache/cracklib/cracklib_dict.
       None of the subroutines in the cracklib libraries  have  this  location
       hard-coded  into their implementations.  It is generated daily with the
       program /etc/cron.daily/cracklib.

FILES

       /var/cache/cracklib/cracklib_dict.[hwm|pwd|pwi]
              cracklib dictionary database files used by utilities.

       /etc/cron.daily/cracklib
              cracklib daily cron program to rebuild the  cracklib  dictionary
              database.

       /etc/cracklib/cracklib.conf
              cracklib  configuration  file  used  by  the cracklib daily cron
              program to rebuild the cracklib dictionary database.

       /usr/sbin/crack_mkdict
              cracklib shell script  to  create  initial  list  of  words  for
              dictionary database.

       /usr/share/doc/cracklib2-dev/examples
              Example cc(1) source files that show how FascistCheck is used.

SEE ALSO

       crack_teststr(8), crack_mkdict(8), update-cracklib(8)
       /usr/share/doc/cracklib2-dev/examples
       /usr/share/doc/cracklib2/crackli.html
       /usr/share/doc/cracklib2-dev/cracklib2-dev.html

AUTHOR

       cracklib2  is  written  by  Alec  Muffett  <alecm@crypto.dircon.co.uk>.
       Manual added by Jean Pierre LeJacq <jplejacq@quoininc.com>.