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I am trying to setup some OLD laptops with Ubuntu 14.04LTS at an elementary school. I would like a simple password for the students to type but the password I am choosing keeps failing password complexity requirements. I have tried to edit the /etc/pam.d/common-password file with the minlength=1 and all of the other changes but this doesn't seem to make any difference.

What am I missing?

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2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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You only need to use 

sudo passwd <user>

This will skip all requirements.

Warning: this will break automatic decryption if you encrypted your disk.

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By default, you should have a line like this in /etc/pam.d/common-password:

password [success=1 default=ignore] pam_unix.so obscure sha512 try_first_pass

Remove obscure and add minlen=1 (or whatever rules you want):

password [success=1 default=ignore] pam_unix.so sha512 try_first_pass minlen=1

With this, you can set the password to be very simple, like a.

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    I tried your instructions and unfortunately it did not work. Here is what I am doing to test it- I go into System Settings - User Accounts - unlock egpl - Click on password and enter a - It says Not Good Enough and the Change button is still grayed out. Commented Apr 1, 2015 at 18:42
  • Ah- it might be that tool is using a different way to check password complexity. If you open a terminal as the user you want to change the password as and run the <code>passwd</code> command, does it allow you to change the password then? Commented Apr 1, 2015 at 18:47
  • No. I am new to Ubuntu so I will let you know what I did so in case that is part of the problem. I logged in as the user egpl and then at a terminal screen I entered passwd. It immediately comes up and says Permission denied password unchanged. If I put in passwd egpl it says the same thing. I appreciate your help with this. I am eager to get these laptops into the hands of the students! Commented Apr 1, 2015 at 20:04
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    password [success=1 default=ignore] pam_unix.so sha512 try_first_pass minlen=1 Commented Apr 3, 2015 at 17:03
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    It is almost like the system isn't even using this file to determine password complexity at all. Commented Apr 3, 2015 at 17:07

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