You wrote (in your message from Wed 3)
 > Hello,
 > 
 > I recent change the password of a user with the length of the password >
 > 8 chars (eg. abcdefgh!!). When I login using the changed password user
 > id, I could login with the password (e.g. abcdefgh).  Is this a bug of
 > the passwd.  Anyone knows about this.  please advise.
 > 

I'm sure that you will get 100 or more answers... but here's mine:

It's a feature of the current password handling code common to many
Unix versions: passwords have only 8 significant characters.



					Matthieu