/etc/login.defs settings not taken into account: password aging

David asked:

The following is done on a Ubuntu 20.04 system.

This is the scenario where I am facing an issue:

• I edit the password aging settings in the login.defs file
• Then I change the password of the user with passwd user command
• I check what settings were applied to the password of the user with the chage -l user command

The issue:

The values returned seem not to be taking into account the changes made to the /etc/login.defs file.

Is there any reason for this?

How could I debug the issue? (e.g.: how to see what other settings may be tampering the values from the /etc/login.defs?)

Thank you!

        PASS_MAX_DAYS, PASS_MIN_DAYS and PASS_WARN_AGE are only used at the
        time of account creation. Any changes to these settings won't affect
        existing accounts.