--- name: "cracklib-update" section: "8" platform: "linux" package: "cracklib" version: "2.10.3-1" release: "Arch Linux 2026-11-01" platforms: ["linux"] url: "https://new.carta.tech/cracklib-update" --- # cracklib-update(8) Regenerate cracklib dictionary ## NAME update-cracklib - Regenerate cracklib dictionary ## SYNOPSIS **update-cracklib**\ ## DESCRIPTION **update-cracklib** builds a compressed and accumulated version of wordlists stored in the directories given in cracklib's configuration file /etc/cracklib/cracklib.conf. Programs using cracklib2 need this database to be of any use. By default this script is called by cron every day. ## RESULT **update-cracklib** prints out two numbers: the number of words read from the ASCII dictionaries and the number of words eventually written into the cracklib database; if no error occurred, these should be equal. 0 is returned on success, otherwise an error message is printed to standard error and -1 is returned. ## FILES - **/etc/cracklib/cracklib.conf** shell script that sets **cracklib\_dictpath\_src** which must be a space separated list of source dictionary files. ## SEE ALSO [**cracklib**(3)](/cracklib/3.md), [**crack\_mkdict**(8)](/crack_mkdict/8.md) ## AUTHOR This program and manual page was written by Martin Pitt \ for the Debian GNU/Linux System (but may be used by others).