Are passwords on modern Unix/Linux systems still limited to 8 characters?

Question

Years ago it used to be the case that Unix passwords were limited to 8 characters, or that if you made the password longer than 8 characters the extra wouldn\'t make any differe

Answer 1

Not for Linux. It's only 8 if you disable MD5 Hashing.

http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linux/RHL-8.0-Manual/security-guide/s1-wstation-pass.html

You can administer policies enforcing longer and more complex passwords as well.

The full lengths are discussed here:

http://www.ratliff.net/blog/2007/09/20/password-length/