http://checkpasswd-pam.sourceforge.net/ checkpassword-pam is an implementation of checkpassword-compatible authentication program. Checkpassword is described in checkpassword-pam was written from scratch. There are several older packages called checkpassword-pam, derived from DJB's checkpassword code. This checkpassword-pam is more modern and administrator-friendly. If you are using Linux-PAM, make sure it is more recent than 0.59. Incompatibilities are in the PAM conversation function (number of requests vs number of responses). All modern Linux distribution use PAM newer than that.