Score:0

/etc/login.defs settings not taken into account: password aging

us flag

The following is done on a Ubuntu 20.04 system.


This is the scenario where I am facing an issue:

  • I edit the password aging settings in the login.defs file
  • Then I change the password of the user with passwd user command
  • I check what settings were applied to the password of the user with the chage -l user command

The issue:

The values returned seem not to be taking into account the changes made to the /etc/login.defs file.

Is there any reason for this?

How could I debug the issue? (e.g.: how to see what other settings may be tampering the values from the /etc/login.defs?)

Thank you!

Score:2
cz flag

The man page is pretty clear about this:

        PASS_MAX_DAYS, PASS_MIN_DAYS and PASS_WARN_AGE are only used at the
        time of account creation. Any changes to these settings won't affect
        existing accounts.
David avatar
us flag
Indeed, my lack of knowledge betrayed me yet again! Thank you @michael-hampton for your answer, and for helping me out on this!
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