[MacTUG] OS X password length limit... not eight characters?

[Daniel Allen]

Oh for pete's sake: my leopard and snow leopard systems have those  
manpages overridden by /opt/local/share, thanks to ports installed.  
That limit (at least 128 characters) is fairly plain if you think to  
check the (proper) manpages. :)  Thanks Ian!

(I wonder if that information is also hidden somewhere non-google- 
indexed on apple's support site; but I won't spend that time to find  
out).

Thanks, -Daniel

On 14-Dec-10, at 8:37 AM, Ian Turner wrote:

> from a "man passwd " in Snow Leopard
>
> The passwd utility changes the user's password.  If the user is not  
> the super-user, passwd first prompts for the current password and
>     will not continue unless the correct password is entered.
>
>     When entering the new password, the characters entered do not  
> echo, in order to avoid the password being seen by a passer-by.  The
>     passwd utility prompts for the new password twice in order to  
> detect typing errors.
>
>     The new password should be at least six characters long and not  
> purely alphabetic.  Its total length should be less than _PASSWORD_LEN
>     (currently 128 characters), although some directory systems  
> allow longer passwords.  Numbers, upper case letters, and meta  
> characters
>     are encouraged.
>
>
> On 2010/12/13 16:40 , Daniel Allen wrote:
>> Googling "OS X password length" finds me the only official Apple
>> support document that seems to mention password length:
>>
>> Mac OS X: Effective Password Length of Eight Characters
>> http://support.apple.com/kb/TA20725
>>
>> Is there an effective limit? We're updating our password-changing
>> process, and our Active Directory seems to accept 75+ character
>> passwords without a problem. Preliminary checks seem to suggest the
>> macs are fine with 90-character passwords, but I haven't tested many
>> of the uses (eg, keychain).
>>
>> I'd mostly like to rule out some weird circumstance where the limit
>> was still 8 characters (Leopard onward).
>>
>> Thanks,
>> -Daniel
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