NAME

       cracklib-format, cracklib-packer, cracklib-unpacker - cracklib dictionary utilities

SYNOPSIS

       cracklib-format file ...

       cracklib-packer cracklib_dictpath

       cracklib-unpacker cracklib_dictpath

DESCRIPTION

       cracklib-format  takes a list of text files each containing a list of words, one per line,
       It lowercases all words, removes control characters, and sorts the lists.  It outputs  the
       cleaned  up  list  to  standard  output.  The text files may be optionally compressed with
       gzip(1).

       If you supply massive amounts of text to cracklib-format you must have enough  free  space
       available  for  use  by the sort(1) command.  If you do not have 20Mb free in /var/tmp (or
       whatever  temporary  area   your   sort(1)   command   uses),   have   a   look   at   the
       /usr/sbin/cracklib-format  program  which  is  a sh(1) program.  You can usually tweak the
       sort(1) command to use any large area of disk  you  desire,  by  use  of  the  -T  option.
       cracklib-format has a hook for this.

       cracklib-packer reads from standard input a list of sorted and cleaned words and creates a
       database in the directory and prefix given by the command line argument cracklib_dictpath.
       Three  files are created with the suffixes of .hwm, .pwd, and .pwi.  These three files are
       in  the  format   that   the   FascistCheck(3)   subroutine,   cracklib-unpacker(8),   and
       cracklib-check(8), utilities understand.  The number of words read and written are printed
       on stdout(3).

       cracklib-unpacker reads from the database in the directory and prefix given by the command
       line argument cracklib_dictpath and outputs on standard output the list of words that make
       up the database.

       The database is in a binary format  generated  by  the  utilities  cracklib-format(8)  and
       cracklib-packer(8).   On  a  Debian  system  the  database  is  located  in  the directory
       /var/cache/cracklib/cracklib_dict   and   is   generated   daily    with    the    program
       /etc/cron.daily/cracklib.   The  location is also defined in the header file crack.h using
       the constant CRACKLIB_DICTPATH though none of the subroutines in  the  cracklib  libraries
       have this location hardcoded into their implementations.

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/include/crack.h
              cracklib header file defining  the  subroutine  FascistCheck(3)  and  the  constant
              CRACKLIB_DICTPATH  used  to  compile  in  the  location  of the cracklib dictionary
              database for these utilities.

       /usr/sbin/cracklib-format
              cracklib shell script to create initial list of words for dictionary database.

SEE ALSO

       FascistCheck(3), cracklib-check(8), update-cracklib(8), create-cracklib-dict(8)
       /usr/share/doc/libcrack2/libcrack2.html
       /usr/share/doc/cracklib-runtime/cracklib-runtime.html

AUTHOR

       cracklib2 is written by Alec Muffett <alecm@crypto.dircon.co.uk>.  Manual  added  by  Jean
       Pierre LeJacq <jplejacq@quoininc.com>.