The password complexity policy for local users of the VMware Aria Operations appliances and the VMware Cloud Proxy appliances determines the password format requirements on the basis of an account-specific set of rules.

Table 1. Password Complexity for VMware Aria Operations
Setting

Default Value

 Description

dcredit

-1

Maximum number of digits that generate a credit

ucredit

-1

Maximum number of uppercase characters that generate a credit

lcredit

-1

Maximum number of lowercase characters that generate a credit

ocredit

-1

Maximum number of other characters that generate a credit

minlen

8

Minimum password length (number of characters)

minclass

4

Minimum number of character types that must be used (for example, uppercase, lowercase, digits, and so on)

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 identical consecutive characters in the new password

remember

5

Maximum number of passwords the system remembers

Procedure

  1. Log in to the primary VMware Aria Operations node by using a Secure Shell (SSH) client at <aria_operations_primary_node_fqdn> as root.
  2. Back up the /etc/security/pwquality.conf file for the appliance.
    cp -p /etc/security/pwquality.conf /etc/security/pwquality.conf-`date +%F_%H:%M:%S`.back
  3. Configure the settings according to the requirements of your organization.
    sed -i -E 's/dcredit = [-]?[0-9]+$/dcredit = <your_value>/g' /etc/security/pwquality.conf
sed -i -E 's/ucredit = [-]?[0-9]+$/ucredit = <your_value>/g' /etc/security/pwquality.conf
sed -i -E 's/lcredit = [-]?[0-9]+$/lcredit = <your_value>/g' /etc/security/pwquality.conf
sed -i -E 's/ocredit = [-]?[0-9]+$/ocredit = <your_value>/g' /etc/security/pwquality.conf
sed -i -E 's/minlen = [-]?[0-9]+$/minlen = <your_value>/g' /etc/security/pwquality.conf
sed -i -E 's/minclass = [-]?[0-9]+$/minclass = <your_value>/g' /etc/security/pwquality.conf
sed -i -E 's/difok = [-]?[0-9]+$/difok = <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
sed -i 's/^\s*#*\s*retry\s*=\s*[0-9]\+/retry = <your_value>/g' /etc/security/pwquality.conf

  4. 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

  5. Enable it for the root user, and update the remember settings, using values that meet the requirements of your organization.

    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

  6. Verify the values.

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

  7. Repeat the procedure for the remaining VMware Aria Operations appliances and the VMware Cloud Proxy appliances.