The advanced_password_check module allows you to strengthen password policies for Greenplum Database. It is based on the passwordcheck_extra module, which enhances the PostgreSQL passwordcheck module to support user-defined policies to strengthen passwordcheck's minimum password requirements.

Loading the Module

The advanced_password_check module provides no SQL-accessible functions. To use it, enable the extension as a preloaded library and restart Greenplum Database:

First, check if there are any preloaded shared libraries by running the following command:

gpconfig -s shared_preload_libraries

Use the output of the above command to enable the advanced_password_check module, along any other shared libraries, and restart Greenplum Database:

gpconfig -c shared_preload_libraries -v '<other_libraries>,advanced_password_check'
gpstop -ar

Finally, install the extension in your database:

CREATE EXTENSION advanced_password_check;

Using the advanced_password_check Module

advanced_password_check is a Greenplum Database module that you can enable and configure to check password strings against one or more user-defined policies. You can configure policies that:

  • Set a minimum password string length.
  • Set a maximum password string length.
  • Set a maximum password age before the password expires.
  • Set rules for reusing an old password: the number of days or the number of previous passwords before a user can reuse a password.
  • Set the maximum number of failed login attempts before a user is locked, and the number of minutes the user remains locked.
  • Define a custom list of special characters.
  • Define rules for special character, upper/lower case character, and number inclusion in the password string.
  • Use UDFs to manage an exception list for each feature so certain users can bypass the current restrictions.

The advanced_password_check module defines server configuration parameters that you set to configure password setting policies. These parameters include:

Parameter Name Type Default Value Description
minimum_length int 8 The minimum allowable length of a Greenplum Database password.
maximum_length int 15 The maximum allowable length of a Greenplum Database password.
special_chars string !@#$%^&*()_+{}|<>?= The set of characters that Greenplum Database considers to be special characters in a password.
restrict_upper bool true Specifies whether or not the password string must contain at least one upper case character.
restrict_lower bool true Specifies whether or not the password string must contain at least one lower case character.
restrict_numbers bool true Specifies whether or not the password string must contain at least one number.
restrict_special bool true Specifies whether or not the password string must contain at least one special character.
password_login_attempts int 0 The number of consecutive failed login attempts before a user is locked. If set to 0, this feature is disabled.
password_max_age int 0 The maximum number of days before the password expires. If set to 0, the password does not expire.
password_reuse_days int 0 The number of days before a user can reuse a password. If set to 0, the user can reuse any password.
password_reuse_history int 0 The number of previous passwords a user cannot reuse. If set to 0, the user can reuse any password.
lockout_duration int 0 The number of minutes a user is locked after reaching password_login_attempts. If set to 0, the user is locked indefinitely.

After you define your password policies, you run the gpconfig command for each configuration parameter that you must set. When you run the command, you must qualify the parameter with the module name. For example, to configure Greenplum Database to remove any requirements for a lower case letter in the password string, you run the following command:

gpconfig -c advanced_password_check.restrict_lower -v false

After you set or change module configuration in this manner, you must reload the Greenplum Database configuration:

gpstop -u

The advanced_password_check module provides the following user-defined functions (UDF). Specify all function arguments as single-quoted strings.

Function Signature Arguments Description
manage_exception_list(action, role_name, exception_type) - action can be add, remove, or show.
- role_name
- exception_type can be password_max_age, password_reuse_days, password_reuse_history, or password_login_attempts.		 Adds, removes, and shows roles in the exception list for a policy.
unblock_account(role_name) role_name Unblocks a role
status() Lists active password policies.

Use the manage_exception_list() function to manage the exception list for a password policy. Greenplum does not enforce the rules set for the policy for any users specified in the exception list. The function takes three arguments: the action to take, the role name and the name of the exception. The value of action can be add, remove, or show. The value of exception_type can be password_max_age, password_reuse_days, password_reuse_history, password_login_attempts, or an empty string to represent all of the available exception types. When the action is show, you may specify role_name as an empty string to include all roles.

For example, to add the role user1 to the exception list for password_max_age, so the role does not have a password expiration date:

SELECT advanced_password_check.manage_exception_list('add', 'user1', 'password_max_age');

role_id | role_name | exception_type 
---------+-----------+---------------- 
(0 rows)

The following example checks all exception lists for all roles:

SELECT * FROM advanced_password_check.manage_exception_list('show','', ''); 

role_id | role_name |     exception_type 
---------+-----------+------------------------- 
1826266 | user1     | password_max_age 
1826267 | user2     | password_reuse_history 
1826266 | user1     | password_reuse_days 
1826266 | user1     | password_login_attempts 
(4 rows)

Use the unblock_account_role() function to manually unblock a user that reached the limit set by the configuration parameter password_login_attempts. For example:

SELECT * FROM advanced_password_check.unblock_account('user1'); 

unblock_account 
----------------- 
(1 row)

Use the status() function to view the values of all active password policies. For example:

SELECT * FROM advanced_password_check.status(); 

           guc           |        value 
-------------------------+--------------------- 
special_chars           | !@#$%^&*()_+{}|<>?= 
restrict_lower          | t 
restrict_upper          | t 
restrict_numbers        | t 
restrict_special        | t 
minimum_length          | 8 
maximum_length          | 15 
password_max_age        | 192 
password_reuse_days     | 0 
password_reuse_history  | 0 
password_login_attempts | 0 
lockout_duration        | 0 
(12 rows)
Note

The password history information is stored in the Greenplum master host only. In the event of a primary master failure, if you activate the standby master host, the advanced_password_check module will not be able to access the password history information, and it will affect any server configuration parameters or UDFs that involve password history information. For example, a role may reuse a password even if the password_reuse_history is set, as there is no information about previous passwords. If you switch back to the original master host, unless there is data corruption, the password history information will be accessible again.

Example

Suppose that you have defined the following password policies:

  • The password must contain a minimum of 10 characters and a maximum of 18.
  • The password must contain a mixture of upper case and lower case characters.
  • The password must contain at least one of the default special characters.
  • The are no requirements that the password contain a number.
  • The password must not be the same as the current password.
  • The password must expire after three months.
  • The user must be blocked during an hour after the third of three unsuccessful login attempts.

You would run the following commands to configure Greenplum Database to enforce these policies:

gpconfig -c advanced_password_check.minimum_length -v 10
gpconfig -c advanced_password_check.maximum_length -v 18
gpconfig -c advanced_password_check.restrict_numbers -v false
gpconfig -c advanced_password_check.password_reuse_history -v 1
gpconfig -c advanced_password_check.password_max_age -v 90
gpconfig -c advanced_password_check.password_login_attempts -v 3
gpconfig -c advanced_password_check.lockout_duration -v 60
gpadmin@gpmaster$ gpstop -u

After loading the new configuration, passwords that the Greenplum superuser sets must now follow the policies, and Greenplum returns an error for every policy that is not met. Note that Greenplum checks the password string against all of the policies, and concatenates together the messages for any errors that it encounters. For example (line breaks added for better viewability):

# testdb=# CREATE role r1 PASSWORD '12345678901112';
ERROR:  Incorrect password format: lower-case character missing, upper-case character
missing, special character missing (needs to be one listed in "<list-of-special-chars>")

Upgrading the Module

You may upgrade the module from a previous version by following the steps below.

  1. Check your existing version of the module by running \dx from your database.

  2. Verify that advanced_password_check is listed as one of the preloaded shared libraries by running the following command:

    gpconfig -s shared_preload_libraries

  3. Update the extension from your database prompt. The following example upgrades to version 1.2:

    ALTER EXTENSION advanced_password_check UPDATE TO ‘1.2’;

Additional Module Documentation

Refer to the passwordcheck PostgreSQL documentation for more information about this module.

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