[Wylug-help] Bad Passwords

[Anne Wilson]

On Wednesday 11 April 2007, Trevor Noland wrote:
> Hello Everybody,
>
> We have a small Linux server with about 20 users, in a LAN without
> connection to the outside world. The users are all PCs running different
> versions of M$ Windows, and connect, using a telnet program, to do
> accounting, invoices, stock control etc. in a fairly conventional but very
> rubust (if out of date) commercial setup.
> Up to now only about half of the users have a password. It's not a problem,
> as all the users have access to the same stuff anyway, and we all know each
> other (and each other's passwords!). Only root (and one user with root
> permission) have "difficult" paswords which only two people know
> (hopefully).
> Now there's a probability that this LAN will be included in a network with
> a router, and in provision of access via Internet sometime in the future we
> are giving all accounts passwords as a first step towards some sort of
> protection (not much, I know, but it's a start).
> Now here's the rub. Some of the passwords users want are rejected by
> passwd. Particularly annoying are the ones said to be based on dictionary
> words, because most words in the dictionaries here (in Spain) are accepted,
> the ones being rejected are the "foreign" words found in English.
> (Should I have mentioned at the beginning that I was writing from Spain?)
> (Why Wylug and not something more local? Well I was born and lived the
> first 20 years of my life in Leeds, also Wylug seems to work much better
> than any others I've lurked in!)
>
> My question at last (if anyone has read this far):
>
> Is there a way to get Linux to accept passwords that it doesn't like?
>
> Best wishes to everyone, hope you can help me.
> Trevor.
>
Since rejections are because they would be easier to crack, why not suggest to 
them that their chosen words can be made to work if they will only change a 
letter or two to upper case, and include somewhere in the password at least 
one digit or non-letter character?

Anne
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