set up password change regularly with certain rules

[James Gray]

Soo-Hyun Choi wrote:
> hi,
> 
> i wonder if there is any good way of setting up a user password change 
> regularly with applying certain rules (e.g., more than 6 letters or so). 
> the basic intention is to force a user to change his password in a 
> regular basis.

In addition to Chris Mohler's comments, have a look at 
/etc/pam.d/common-password which is heavily commented and relatively 
self-explanatory.

BEWARE! Before you decide to start modifying the values in that file, 
make sure you understand the contents.  If you follow the instructions 
in the file, you'll be fine....improvise without $CLUE and you can lock 
yourself out of your system.  Google is your friend to discover the 
black art that *is* PAM (pluggable auth modules).

YMMV and other disclaimers apply ;)

-- James