UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users

Note: **Showing Asterisks when using SUDO is not what I am looking for. That method is well documented**

Short Description: We have a requirement where users want to see that they are typing a password when logging into a RedHat box or when they are changing their password -- instead of seeing nothing.

Reason for request: I have Windows users who use an application where I configured Windbind to connect to our Active Directory environment for account authentication. After x number of days, users are required to change their AD password via a Unix interface. *nix default behavior as we know, is to not show asterisks/anything when typing a password (for security or 'dev folk never got around to changing the code to change this behaviour' reasons). Whatever the case, I have been asked if there was a way to allow for Asterisks to be shown when users are logging in or changing their password. Is there a configuration change anybody is aware of, or a commercial product that will do this?

I have found many - many posts to do it when using SUDO, but this will not accomplish what I need to do.

The UNIX login / password system is called PAM, or shadow (part of PAM). Open source PAM actually used to have this feature (GETPASS_ASTERISK) but it was removed for security reasons sometime 2006-ish. It prevents people from guessing your password's length - same reason web browsers show the wrong number of asterisks on autofill.