Changing your password on the DCS Unix machines

Changing your password on the DCS Unix machines

Passwords for our Unix machines are not kept on any machines accessible by users. They are kept on a pair of password servers. These servers serve the same set of passwords to all the clusters we administer, so whichever cluster(s) you have accounts on, your password is the same.

There are two methods for changing your password. The easiest is probably on the web:

    https://www.cs.rutgers.edu/common/admin/password/
There you can change your password if you know any of your CS, RCI or Eden passwords.

You can also change your password from the shell using the passwd command. For historical reasons, you have to do this on the YP master of the cluster you are on. The command "ypwhich -m passwd" will tell you which machine that is.

    aramis% passwd
    Changing password for watrous on aramis.rutgers.edu.
    Enter current password for +IID+@LCSR.RUTGERS.EDU: 

    Unable to Get Initial Credentials : Decrypt integrity check failed -1765328353

In the above example, the cryptic error message means you typed your old password incorrectly.

    aramis% passwd
    Changing password for watrous on aramis.rutgers.edu.
    Enter current password for +IID+@LCSR.RUTGERS.EDU: 

    Hit the 'enter' key twice to see the rules for legal passwords

If you do hit enter twice, you will see

    Enter new password for +IID+@LCSR.RUTGERS.EDU:
    Repeat new password for +IID+@LCSR.RUTGERS.EDU: 

    The following are the password rules for policy: default
       A password must contain at least 6 characters.
       A password must include characters from at least 3 character class(es).
	 (Classes include upper-case, lower-case, numeric, and special).
       A password must not match the previous 5 password(s).
       A password must not be changed within 0 seconds of the previous change.
       A password must be changed by 0 seconds after the previous change.

       A password must not contain more than 8 characters.
       A password must not contain any 4 consecutive characters from 
	 your finger entry or IID (i.e. initials), 
	 or from the contents of .plan, .project, .forward, .qmail, or .signature.


Briefly, this means your password should be 6-8 characters long, have characters from at least 3 of the 4 types of characters {CAPITALS, LOWERCASE, NUMBERS, and SPECIAL}, not contain any words or easily obtained info about you, and not be any recently used passwords of yours.

    Hit the 'enter' key twice to see the rules for legal passwords

    Enter new password for +IID+@LCSR.RUTGERS.EDU:
    Repeat new password for +IID+@LCSR.RUTGERS.EDU: 
    Password changed.
    Done.

If you don't know any of your CS, RCI or Eden passwords, you will have to come in person to the operator in room 235 of CoRE building. Don't forget to bring your University ID.


This page last updated March 29, 2006.