[X4U] Password Expiration?

mac2 mac2 at oryx.cc
Thu Apr 21 15:04:33 PDT 2005


extracted from

-----------------------

467 # man 5 passwd

much deleted here .....

      The change field is the number in seconds, GMT, from the epoch, until the
      password for the account must be changed.  This field may be left empty
      to turn off the password aging feature.

-----------------------

I missed the first part of this conversation, but every version of Unix, or Unix 
clone, to include MacOS X, has had some type of password expiration.

per the MacOSX FAQ here:

http://www.osxfaq.com/man/1/chpass.ws

The chpass command can be used to modify the "Change:" time, which is when a 
user must change their password by.

Also from the chpass man page on a MacOS X 10.3.8 system, also note:

-----------------------

  This version of chpass is currently limited to changing user database entries
  in the flat file and local netinfo databases.

-----------------------

hope this helps.

Jerry K


Alex wrote:
> 
> On Apr 21, 2005, at 1:21 PM, Peter Krug wrote:
> 
>> [...] any computer with patient information must have its password 
>> expire every 120 days [...]
> 
> 
> I'm not an expert, but it seems to me that actually Mac OS X is superior 
> in this respect to Windows. By default, neither supports expiry of local 
> user passwords; however, Mac OS X fully supports OpenLDAP and Kerberos, 
> as well as (at least in Tiger) Active Directory, and password expiry is 
> available in all three. But this is a feature which would be implemented 
> by the network admin, not by the local user.
> 


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