Password History on SUSE Linux

Password history on SUSE I thought would be a lot like RedHat I read through pam_unix.so readme and it works just like it does on RedHat or Fedora Core unfortunately default config for SUSE 8.X - 9.X is to make use of pam_unix2.so which doesn't support password history.

To get around this problem I found SUSE makes use of pam_pwcheck much like RedHat uses pam_stack albiet pam_stack is far better and much more extensible pam_pwcheck can be told to remember NNN number of passwords with the "remember=" directive. To make the change system wide you'll need to do the following:

edit /etc/security/pam_pwcheck.conf
append remember=XXX to the uncommented line at the bottom of the file

umask 077 && touch /etc/security/opasswd and you should be off and running