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Table Of Contents

The following password candidates do not meet requirements.

n Xqat3hi: Begins with an uppercase character, reducing the effective number of character

classes to two. The minimum number of required character classes is three.

n xQaTEh2: Ends with a number, reducing the effective number of character classes to two. The

minimum number of required character classes is three.

ESXi Pass Phrase

Instead of a password, you can also use a pass phrase. However, pass phrases are

disabled by default. You can change the default setting and other settings by using the

Security.PasswordQualityControl advanced option from the vSphere Client.

For example, you can change the option to the following.

retry=3 min=disabled,disabled,16,7,7

This example allows pass phrases of at least 16 characters and at least three words.

For legacy hosts, changing the /etc/pam.d/passwd file is still supported, but changing the file

is deprecated for future releases. Use the Security.PasswordQualityControl advanced option

instead.

Changing Default Password Restrictions

You can change the default restriction on passwords or pass phrases by using the

Security.PasswordQualityControl advanced option for your ESXi host. See

vCenter Server and

Host Management

documentation for information on setting ESXi advanced options.

You can change the default, for example, to require a minimum of 15 characters and a minimum

number of four words (passphrase=4), as follows:

retry=3 min=disabled,disabled,15,7,7 passphrase=4

See the man page for pam_passwdqc for details.

Note Not all possible combinations of password options have been tested. Perform testing after

you change the default password settings.

This example sets the password complexity requirement to require eight characters from four

character classes that enforce a significant password difference, a remembered history of five

passwords, and a 90 day rotation policy:

min=disabled,disabled,disabled,disabled,8 similar=deny

Set the Security.PasswordHistory option to 5 and the Security.PasswordMaxDays option to 90.

VMware ESXi Installation and Setup

VMware, Inc. 22