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>.