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>.