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postgres/doc/src/sgml/passwordcheck.sgml
Magnus Hagander 98de86e422 Remove support for native krb5 authentication
krb5 has been deprecated since 8.3, and the recommended way to do
Kerberos authentication is using the GSSAPI authentication method
(which is still fully supported).

libpq retains the ability to identify krb5 authentication, but only
gives an error message about it being unsupported. Since all authentication
is initiated from the backend, there is no need to keep it at all
in the backend.
2014-01-19 17:05:01 +01:00

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<!-- doc/src/sgml/passwordcheck.sgml -->
<sect1 id="passwordcheck" xreflabel="passwordcheck">
<title>passwordcheck</title>
<indexterm zone="passwordcheck">
<primary>passwordcheck</primary>
</indexterm>
<para>
The <filename>passwordcheck</filename> module checks users' passwords
whenever they are set with
<xref linkend="SQL-CREATEROLE"> or
<xref linkend="SQL-ALTERROLE">.
If a password is considered too weak, it will be rejected and
the command will terminate with an error.
</para>
<para>
To enable this module, add <literal>'$libdir/passwordcheck'</literal>
to <xref linkend="guc-shared-preload-libraries"> in
<filename>postgresql.conf</filename>, then restart the server.
</para>
<para>
You can adapt this module to your needs by changing the source code.
For example, you can use
<ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/projects/cracklib/">CrackLib</ulink>
to check passwords &mdash; this only requires uncommenting
two lines in the <filename>Makefile</filename> and rebuilding the
module. (We cannot include <productname>CrackLib</productname>
by default for license reasons.)
Without <productname>CrackLib</productname>, the module enforces a few
simple rules for password strength, which you can modify or extend
as you see fit.
</para>
<caution>
<para>
To prevent unencrypted passwords from being sent across the network,
written to the server log or otherwise stolen by a database administrator,
<productname>PostgreSQL</productname> allows the user to supply
pre-encrypted passwords. Many client programs make use of this
functionality and encrypt the password before sending it to the server.
</para>
<para>
This limits the usefulness of the <filename>passwordcheck</filename>
module, because in that case it can only try to guess the password.
For this reason, <filename>passwordcheck</filename> is not
recommended if your security requirements are high.
It is more secure to use an external authentication method such as GSSAPI
(see <xref linkend="client-authentication">) than to rely on
passwords within the database.
</para>
<para>
Alternatively, you could modify <filename>passwordcheck</filename>
to reject pre-encrypted passwords, but forcing users to set their
passwords in clear text carries its own security risks.
</para>
</caution>
</sect1>