passwd: Critical error - immediate abort

If you are seeing these messages then make sure that you have installed pam_cracklib.so. It will manifest itself as unrecognized module when trying to change the password or add a user.

PAM unable to dlopen(/lib/security/pam_cracklib.so)
PAM [dlerror: /lib/security/pam_cracklib.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory]
PAM adding faulty module: /lib/security/pam_cracklib.so

If you ever get the following message and are not sure why!

passwd: Critical error - immediate abort

Make sure you install wenglish or another dictionary installed and run

/etc/cron.daily/cracklib

and try again.