The Similarity Based Password Validator determines whether a proposed password is acceptable by measuring how similar it is to the user's current password.
In particular, it uses the Levenshtein Distance algorithm to determine the minimum number of changes (where a change may be inserting, deleting, or replacing a character) to transform one string into the other. It can be used to prevent users from making only minor changes to their current password when setting a new password. Note that for this password validator to be effective, it is necessary to have access to the user's current password. Therefore, if this password validator is to be enabled, the password-change-requires-current-password attribute in the password policy configuration must also be set to true.
The Similarity Based Password Validator component inherits from the Password Validator
A description of each property follows.
| Basic Properties: | Advanced Properties: |
|---|---|
| ↓ enabled | ↓ java-class |
| ↓ min-password-difference |
| Description | Indicates whether the password validator is enabled for use. |
| Default Value | None |
| Allowed Values | true false |
| Multi-valued | No |
| Required | Yes |
| Admin Action Required | None |
| Advanced Property | No |
| Read-only | No |
| Description | Specifies the minimum difference of new and old password. A value of zero indicates that no difference between passwords is acceptable. |
| Default Value | None |
| Allowed Values | An integer value. Lower value is 0. Upper value is 2147483647 . |
| Multi-valued | No |
| Required | Yes |
| Admin Action Required | None |
| Advanced Property | No |
| Read-only | No |
| Description | Specifies the fully-qualified name of the Java class that provides the password validator implementation. |
| Default Value | org.opends.server.extensions.SimilarityBasedPasswordValidator |
| Allowed Values | A java class that implements or extends the class(es) : org.opends.server.api.PasswordValidator |
| Multi-valued | No |
| Required | Yes |
| Admin Action Required | The Similarity Based Password Validator must be disabled and re-enabled for changes to this setting to take effect |
| Advanced Property | Yes |
| Read-only | No |