Configuring Password Ageing

Invalidate a user's password after a specified period.

To specify how users' passwords are aged, edit the following settings in the /etc/login.defs file:

Setting	Description
PASS_MAX_DAYS	Maximum number of days a password can be used before it must be changed. The default value is 99,999 days.
PASS_MIN_DAYS	Minimum number of days allowed between password changes. The default value is 0 days.
PASS_WARN_AGE	Number of days before a password expires that a warning is displayed. The default value is 7 days.

For more information, see the login.defs(5) manual page.

To change how long a user's account can be inactive before it's locked, use the usermod command. For example, to set the inactivity period to 30 days:

sudo usermod -f 30 username

To change the default inactivity period for new user accounts, use the useradd command:

sudo useradd -D -f 30

A value of -1 specifies that user accounts aren't locked because of inactivity.

For more information, see the useradd(8) and usermod(8) manual pages.