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 prevent 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)