The Photon operating system must be configured to use the pam_pwhistory.so module.

Password complexity, or strength, is a measure of the effectiveness of a password in resisting attempts at guessing and brute-force attacks. If the information system or application allows the user to consecutively reuse their password when that password has exceeded its defined lifetime, the end result is a password that is not changed as per policy requirements.

At the command line, run the following command to verify the pam_pwhistory.so module is used:

# grep '^password' /etc/pam.d/system-password

Example result:

password requisite pam_pwquality.so dcredit=-1 ucredit=-1 lcredit=-1 ocredit=-1 minlen=15 difok=8 enforce_for_root dictcheck=1 password required pam_pwhistory.so remember=5 retry=3 enforce_for_root use_authtok password required pam_unix.so sha512 use_authtok shadow try_first_pass

If the "pam_pwhistory.so" module is not present, this is a finding. If "use_authtok" is not present for the "pam_pwhistory.so" module, this is a finding. If "conf" or "file" are present for the "pam_pwhistory.so" module, this is a finding.

Navigate to and open:

/etc/pam.d/system-password

Add or update the pam_pwhistory.so module line as follows:

password required pam_pwhistory.so remember=5 retry=3 enforce_for_root use_authtok

Note: The line must be configured after pam_pwquality.so.

Note: On vCenter appliances, the equivalent file must be edited under "/etc/applmgmt/appliance", if one exists, for the changes to persist after a reboot.