MINIX 3.4.0rc3 password length

[Johnny Lam]

I'm new to MINIX3 but I have a background in using and administering NetBSD systems. I recently installed MINIX-3.4.0rc3 from the development ISO into a VirtualBox VM on Windows 7. I've noticed that login(1) only seems to care about the first 8 characters of my password when logging in on the console. Is this intended?

[Jean-Baptiste Boric]

I've noticed that login(1) only seems to care about the first 8 characters of my password when logging in on the console. Is this intended?

Ancient UNIX systems used a password hashing algorithm based on DES that truncated passwords to 8 characters. Without a properly configured passwd.conf file the NetBSD userland will fall back to that algorithm. 

I checked and MINIX 3 does not have a passwd.conf file in its distribution sets. The setup script will not create one either.

Oh crap.

[Jean-Baptiste Boric]

I created a pull request on GitHub to fix this issue (https://github.com/Stichting-MINIX-Research-Foundation/minix/pull/209).

If you want to fix your installation right now, simply follow the instructions inside the commit (install /etc/passwd.conf and reset your passwords with passwd).

[Lionel Sambuc]

Thank you both for the bug report and extremely prompt investigation & patch submission.

A new RC is available at minix_R3.4.0rc4-72e11e2.iso.bz2.

Kind regards,

Lionel