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Many Linux distributions, FreeBSD 5.0+, and DragonFly BSD 2.2+ include pam_passwdqc or the full-blown passwdqc package in the distribution or provide it as a "native" package to be installed - so you may just use that. The instructions below apply if your distribution lacks passwdqc or if you prefer to build and install passwdqc on your own (such as to get a newer version of it than one available in/for the distribution).

On a system with the PAM (Pluggable Authentication Modules) framework, you may build all components of passwdqc (the library, the PAM module, and two command-line programs) by simply running "make". To install, run "make install". To uninstall, run "make uninstall".

On a system with the PAM framework built with i18n support enabled you may also build pam_passwdqc with i18n support by adding -DENABLE_NLS=1 to CPPFLAGS. To compile translation files, run "make locales". To install them, run "make install_locales".

On a system with the PAM framework built with Linux audit support enabled you may also build pam_passwdqc with audit support by adding -DHAVE_LIBAUDIT=1 to CPPFLAGS.

On a system without PAM, you may build everything but the PAM module with "make utils". To install, run "make install_lib install_utils". To uninstall, run "make remove_lib remove_utils".

Please note that currently passwdqc's default is to install right into system directories such as /etc, /lib, /usr/lib, /usr/include, /usr/share/man, /usr/bin. If desired, these pathnames may be overridden on make's command-line (please see Makefile for the available macro names and passwdqc.spec for some examples).

Since passwdqc installs a new shared library, you may need to run the ldconfig(8) program to update the dynamic linker cache.

Alternatively, on a Red Hat'ish Linux system and under an account configured to build RPM packages (perhaps with ~/.rpmmacros specifying the proper pathnames for %_topdir, %_tmppath, and %buildroot), you may build RPM packages by running "rpmbuild -tb passwdqc-2.0.3.tar.gz", then install the two binary subpackages with "rpm -Uvh passwdqc*-2.0.3*.rpm". This works due to the RPM spec file included in the tarball.

Please refer to README and PLATFORMS for information on configuring your system to use the PAM module. You may also refer to the pam_passwdqc(8) and passwdqc.conf(5) manual pages.

Please refer to the pwqcheck(1), pwqfilter(1), and pwqgen(1) manual pages for information on using the command-line programs.