On 1018760974 seconds since the Beginning of the UNIX epoch
Andrew Brown wrote:
>

>remember, passwords don't always have to do with logging in.  su also
>uses passwords.  this file mainly, off the top of my head, affects the
>behavior of the passwd binary.

That was what I originally thought when reading this thread that
login.conf(5) would logically control how logins occur and that
passwd.conf(5) would control how passwd(1) worked.  Unfortunately,
the situation is not that clear---login.conf defines the minimum
length of local passwords and is hence used by the passwd(1) program.
OTOH, the manual entry for passwd.conf does prominently state that
it is the configuration file for password encryption rather than
a more general configuration file that might control the minimum
length of the password.

 == Roland Dowdeswell                      http://www.Imrryr.ORG/~elric/  ==
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