FascistCheck(3)                                               Debian GNU/Linux manual                                              FascistCheck(3)

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 pre-
       vent 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/cracklib2.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>.

2.7-8.5                                                   Wed, 3 Oct 2001 01:37:09 +0100                                           FascistCheck(3)