First, we need to install the chosen word list for cracklib: install -d -m755 /usr/share/dict && install -m644 [wordlist] /usr/share/dict && ln -sf [wordlist] /usr/share/dict/words && echo $(hostname) >> /usr/share/dict/extra.words Our wordlist is linked to /usr/share/dict/words as historically, words is the primary wordlist in the /usr/share/dict directory. We also echo the value of hostname to a file called extra.words. This extra file is intened to be a site specific list which includes easy to guess passwords such as company or department name, user's names, product names, computer name, domain name, etc. Now apply BLFS patch: patch -Np1 -i ../cracklib-&cracklib-version;-blfs-1.patch If necessary, apply the heimdal patch: cp -R cracklib cracklib_krb5 && patch -Np1 -i ../cracklib-&cracklib-version;-heimdal-1.patch Finally install the package: make install