cracklib-format(8) Debian GNU/Linux manual cracklib-format(8)
NAME
cracklib-format, cracklib-packer, cracklib-unpacker - cracklib dictio-
nary 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 charac-
ters, 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. crack-
lib-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 for-
mat 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 crack-
lib-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 CRACK-
LIB_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 pro-
gram 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 dictio-
nary database.
SEE ALSO
FascistCheck(3), cracklib-check(8), update-cracklib(8), create-crack-
lib-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>.
2.7-8.5 Sat Jun 21 22:43:12 CEST 2008 cracklib-format(8)
Generated by dwww version 1.16 on Sat Oct 3 05:45:26 CEST 2026.