Jason McIntyre <[email protected]> wrote: > On Sun, Dec 13, 2020 at 05:58:08PM +0000, Brian Kelk wrote: > > Hi. > > > > The man page for passwd says that the length of a password must be > > less than a specified value. Less than or equal to would make more > > sense, surely? > > > > Brian Kelk > > > > hi. > > i'm kind of having to guess what exactly you are referring to. for > example, there are two passwd pages. a diff would have saved some > guesswork. > > anyway, i guess you are referring to this: > > The new password should be at least six characters long and > not purely alphabetic. Its total length must be less than > _PASSWORD_LEN (currently 128 characters). > > are you suggesting that the current text is incorrect (i.e. a 128 > character password is valid), or just that the phrasing is not to > your liking (and therefore that we should also adjust the documented > value to 127)?
When it comes to strings, length implies characters, without NUL. 127+NUL < 128. The text is correct.
