Enforce Password Change

[Wanch]

How do I enforce a password change every 60 days in Linux? I would also like the users to have certain rules to follow such as one capital letter and one shift 1-10 key. Any help?

[Jordan]

You can force a user to change their password by using this command:

# chage -d 0 <username>

At their next login they will be required to change it. For password aging (force to change password after XXX days) edit /etc/login.defs file. Change:

PASS_MAX_DAYS   99999

to however many days you want the user to have the same password. IE - 60 days

PASS_MAX_DAYS   60

This only affect new users. For an existing user to enforce a password change every 60 days use:

# chage -M 60 <username>

As for a password policy you can edit that same file /etc/login.defs and change the values.

[cutiger95]

You can of course do it from the command line. But several of the dists now have user administration modules. These modules will allow you to log-in and manage a user with virtual point and click as long as you are the admin.

[Wanch]

Thanks. I'd rather do it in the GUI. Does Ubuntu have a gui administer? What about SuSE?

[cutiger95]

I believe what you are looking for in Ubuntu is Samba, I personally have not used it but someone else may be better at describing it's strengths and weaknesses.

[Wanch]

Isn't Samba a file sharing server, like NFS?

[cutiger95]

You will have to use

Usage: passwd [options] [LOGIN]

Options:
-a, --all report password status on all accounts
-d, --delete delete the password for the named account
-e, --expire force expire the password for the named account
-h, --help display this help message and exit
-k, --keep-tokens change password only if expired
-i, --inactive INACTIVE set password inactive after expiration
to INACTIVE
-l, --lock lock the named account
-n, --mindays MIN_DAYS set minimum number of days before password
change to MIN_DAYS
-q, --quiet quiet mode
-r, --repository REPOSITORY change password in REPOSITORY repository
-S, --status report password status on the named account
-u, --unlock unlock the named account
-w, --warndays WARN_DAYS set expiration warning days to WARN_DAYS
-x, --maxdays MAX_DAYS set maximim number of days before password


to make it work. Sorry couldn't find a GUI for ubuntu, thought there was one but that is what i get for thinking again.
change to MAX_DAYS