{"id":153260,"date":"2026-01-01T17:11:58","date_gmt":"2026-01-01T15:11:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/prohoster.info\/blog\/novosti-interneta\/vypusk-shadow-utils-4-19-s-priznaniem-ustarevshim-mehanizma-ogranicheniya-vremeni-dejstviya-parolej"},"modified":"2026-01-01T17:11:58","modified_gmt":"2026-01-01T15:11:58","slug":"vypusk-shadow-utils-4-19-s-priznaniem-ustarevshim-mehanizma-ogranicheniya-vremeni-dejstviya-parolej","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prohoster.info\/en\/blog\/news\/vypusk-shadow-utils-4-19-s-priznaniem-ustarevshim-mehanizma-ogranicheniya-vremeni-dejstviya-parolej","title":{"rendered":"Release of shadow-utils 4.19, marking the deprecation of the password expiration limitation mechanism.","gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"text"}]},"content":{"rendered":"
The release of the shadow-utils toolkit 4.19.0 is available, which includes utilities for managing user and group credentials, as well as storing passwords in a separate file \/etc\/shadow, accessible only to the root user and the shadow group. It includes utilities such as useradd, userdel, usermod, pwconv, groupadd, groupdel, groupmod, pwunconv, pwck, lastlog, su, and login. The code for the toolkit is written in C and distributed under the BSD license. <\/p>\n
The new version is notable for the announcement of deprecated functionality, forcing users to change their passwords after a certain period. Modern research has shown that the security gain from periodic password changes is minimal, and forcing users to change passwords leads to the use of predictable patterns. The standard NIST SP 800-63B-4, approved in 2025, does not recommend restricting the lifespan of passwords. The options '-k' (--keep-tokens), '-n' (--mindays), '-x' (--maxdays), '-i' (--inactive), and '-w' (--warndays), as well as the flags PASS_MIN_DAYS, PASS_MAX_DAYS, PASS_WARN_AGE, INACTIVE, sp_lstchg, sp_min, sp_max, sp_warn, and sp_inact have been marked as deprecated. There are currently no plans to remove these options and flags, only to label them as deprecated. <\/p>\n
Other significant changes in the new version include: <\/p>\n
\n
The use of escaped newline characters in configuration files is prohibited.\n
Support for SHA-1 hashes has been declared deprecated; in the next release, the option '--with-sha-crypt' will be removed.\n
The utilities groupmems and logoutd have been categorized as deprecated and are planned for removal in future releases.\n
The blocking of certain dangerous usernames and group names has been implemented, regardless of the state of the option '--badname'. For example, names starting with '-' or containing special characters such as '#:;,\/' and various forms of quotes. <\/ul>\n