passwd prompts for new password only once when <enter> is pressed

[powah]

When I just hit "enter" when it prompts for new password, I should get re-prompted 3 times. Instead, it reprompts once for FC 6.

# adduser admin
# passwd admin
Changing password for user admin.
New UNIX password:
BAD PASSWORD: it is WAY too short
Retype new UNIX password:
No password supplied
No password supplied
No password supplied
passwd: Authentication token manipulation error

# uname -a
Linux tulip 2.6.18-1.2798.fc6 #1 SMP Mon Oct 16 14:54:20 EDT 2006 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

[brr872002]

Use web
based admin tool webmin

yum -y install webmin

[powah]

How to change passwd's behavior so that it will re-prompt 3 times?

[giulix]

Given that root is the super-user, he does not need to enter the previous password: he's asked for the new password and the confirmation password only. I take it you are referring to root because the previous command is useradd, which can only be used by the super-user. If you need other modifications to the password verification/enforcement process, you'll have to dig into PAM.

hth...

[powah]

My desired response when nothing is entered for the password : passwd program prompt three times (New UNIX password: appeared three times).

# passwd admin
Changing password for user admin
New UNIX password:
BAD PASSWORD: it's WAY too short
New UNIX password:
BAD PASSWORD: it's WAY too short
New UNIX password:
BAD PASSWORD: it's WAY too short

passwd: Authentication token manipulation error

[giulix]

Well, it doesn't work that way... but you can change passwd and PAM configuration and have it work the way you want. That's the beauty of Linux.

[icydog]

When you're root and it tells you the password is too short or too simple or whatever, that's just a warning by default and not an error. So you can type "a" as password and "a" again to confirm, and it will complain but will take it anyways. I guess it chokes on no input here.

[powah]

Originally Posted by giulix

Well, it doesn't work that way... but you can change passwd and PAM configuration and have it work the way you want. That's the beauty of Linux.

I am not sure which file(s) to change.
Is it /etc/pam.conf and/or /etc/pam.d/system-auth and/or another files?
Do I need to run /etc/pam.d/authconfig?

[powah]

I modified system-auth as follows but passwd still prompt only once when an empty password is entered.

# passwd testing
Changing password for user testing.
New UNIX password:
BAD PASSWORD: it is WAY too short
Retype new UNIX password:
No password supplied
No password supplied
No password supplied

passwd: Authentication token manipulation error

# cat system-auth
#%PAM-1.0
# This file is auto-generated.
# User changes will be destroyed the next time authconfig is run.
auth required pam_env.so
auth sufficient pam_unix.so likeauth nullok
auth required pam_deny.so

account required pam_unix.so

password required pam_cracklib.so retry=3
password sufficient pam_unix.so use_authtok nullok md5 shadow
password required pam_deny.so

session optional pam_keyinit.so revoke
session required pam_limits.so
session [success=1 default=ignore] pam_succeed_if.so service in crond quiet use_uid
session required pam_unix.so