Here is what i have done according to the link.
I have opened the file made following changes restart the system.
Tried to change the password of root user with minimum 5 characters.
to my surprise i was able to change the password .
How this happened ?Do i need to run any command to force PAM authentication?
content from /etc/pam.d/system-auth (The one i have changed is highlighted in bold).
Quote:
# cat /etc/pam.d/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 nullok try_first_pass
auth requisite pam_succeed_if.so uid >= 500 quiet
auth required pam_deny.so
account required pam_unix.so
account sufficient pam_succeed_if.so uid < 500 quiet
account required pam_permit.so
password requisite pam_cracklib.so try_first_pass retry=3
password sufficient pam_unix.so md5 shadow nullok try_first_pass use_authtok
password required pam_deny.so
session optional pam_keyinit.so revoke
session required pam_limits.so
session optional pam_mkhomedir.so
session [success=1 default=ignore] pam_succeed_if.so service in crond quiet use_uid
session required pam_unix.so
password requisite /lib/security/pam_cracklib.so retry=3 minlen=12 lcredit=1 ucredit=1 dcredit=1 ocredit=0