md5 hashing on passwords?

["Kelli Wolfe" <kelli inlet com>]

Hello,

I'm beginning to suspect that my RedHat 6.2 installation
isn't really supporting MD5 hashing on the passwords, even
though I specified MD5 at install as well as on the 
password lines of the PAM files.  Is there a way to
verify this theory?  

If I try to change my password to something greater than 
18 chars in length, I get the message "BAD PASSWORD: is 
too similiar to the old one".  Bad spelling aside, this 
seems to be a bogus message because the new password is 
totally different.  If I enter it with 18 or less chars, 
the password is accepted.

My shadow file has a password entry like this:  
	:$1$s6cSJvNT$PSJJzm/IaL/LnbJJr0qc..:
Which if I'm understanding correctly, is supposed to be
MD5 because of the $1$ in the salt portion...?  What I'm
trying to do is put MD5 passwords in my LDAP directory,
but I can't find a true MD5 password.

If anyone can shed some light on this subject, I'd love
to hear it.

Thanks,
Kelli