The password complexity policy for local users of the HCX Connector appliance determines the password format requirements on the basis of a specific set of rules.

Table 1. Default Password Complexity Policy for Local Users for the HCX Connector Appliance

Setting

Default

Description

dcredit

 1

Maximum number of digits that will generate a credit

ucredit

1

Maximum number of uppercase characters that will generate a credit

lcredit

1

Maximum number of lowercase characters that will generate a credit

ocredit

1

Maximum number of other characters that will generate a credit
minlen 8

Minimum password length in character number

minclass

4

Minimum number of character types that must be used (that is, uppercase, lowercase, digits, other)

difok

4

Minimum number of characters that must be different from the old password

retry

3

Maximum number of retries

maxrepeat

0

Maximum number of times a single character may be repeated

remember

10

Maximum number of passwords the system remembers

Procedure

  1. Log in to the HCX Connector at <hcx_connector_fqdn>:22 as admin by using a Secure Shell (SSH) client.
  2. Switch to the root user by running the command.
    su -
  3. Back up the /etc/security/pwquality.conf file by running the following command.
    cp -p /etc/security/pwquality.conf /etc/security/pwquality.conf-`date +%F_%H:%M:%S`.back
  4. Configure the settings according to the requirements of your organization by running the following commands.
    sed -i 's/^\s*#*\s*dcredit\s*=\s*[0-9]\+/dcredit=<your_value>/g' /etc/security/pwquality.conf
sed -i 's/^\s*#*\s*ucredit\s*=\s*[0-9]\+/ucredit=<your_value>/g' /etc/security/pwquality.conf
sed -i 's/^\s*#*\s*lcredit\s*=\s*[0-9]\+/lcredit=<your_value>/g' /etc/security/pwquality.conf
sed -i 's/^\s*#*\s*ocredit\s*=\s*[0-9]\+/ocredit=<your_value>/g' /etc/security/pwquality.conf
sed -i 's/^\s*#*\s*minlen\s*=\s*[0-9]\+/minlen=<your_value>/g' /etc/security/pwquality.conf
sed -i 's/^\s*#*\s*minclass\s*=\s*[0-9]\+/minclass=<your_value>/g' /etc/security/pwquality.conf
sed -i 's/^\s*#*\s*difok\s*=\s*[0-9]\+/difok=<your_value>/g' /etc/security/pwquality.conf
sed -i 's/^\s*#*\s*retry\s*=\s*[0-9]\+/retry=<your_value>/g' /etc/security/pwquality.conf
sed -i 's/^\s*#*\s*maxrepeat\s*=\s*[0-9]\+/maxrepeat=<your_value>/g' /etc/security/pwquality.conf

  5. Back up the /etc/security/pwhistory.conf file for the appliance.

    cp -p /etc/security/pwhistory.conf /etc/security/pwhistory.conf-`date +%F_%H:%M:%S`.back

  6. Enable enforcement for the root user, and update the remember settings, using values according to the requirements of your organization by running the following commands.

    sed -i 's/^# enforce_for_root/enforce_for_root/' /etc/security/pwhistory.conf
sed -i -E 's/^# remember = [-]?[0-9]+$/remember = <your_value>/g' /etc/security/pwhistory.conf

  7. Verify the configuration of the desired values by running the following command.

    cat /etc/security/pwquality.conf
cat /etc/security/pwhistory.conf

  8. Repeat the procedure for any other HCX Connector appliances.