Initial passwords are generated at/near Max Length (Version 10.0) (4383708)

After upgrading from Identity Manager to a newer version (such as 9.3.x or 10.0), administrators may observe that automatically generated initial passwords are significantly longer than before.

In previous versions, generated passwords often matched the configured minimum password length. After the upgrade, generated passwords may approach the configured maximum password length, causing usability concerns for end users.

This behavior is caused by a fix for defect #463789 ("PasswordPolicy.CreatePassword does not work for MinPasswordQuality=4"), which was introduced in version 9.3.0 and backported to 9.2.2.

Prior to this fix, password generation repeatedly attempted to create a password using the configured minimum length. If the generated password did not satisfy the configured MinPasswordQuality requirement, password generation could eventually fail with a retry limit error.

As part of the fix, the password generation logic was changed to gradually increase the password length when the generated password does not meet the configured MinPasswordQuality threshold. The password length continues to increase until the quality requirement is met or the configured maximum length is reached.

As a result, environments with a non-zero MinPasswordQuality setting may generate passwords that are longer than the configured minimum length.

This behavior is by design and is intended to prevent password generation failures when strict password quality requirements are configured.

If shorter generated passwords are desired, review the following settings:

• MinPasswordQuality
• Minimum password length
• Maximum password length

Possible approaches include:

• Setting MinPasswordQuality to 0 if password quality scoring is not required.
• Adjusting the minimum and maximum password length values to better align with organizational requirements.
• Setting Maximum Length to 0 to disable the maximum length check, if appropriate for the environment.

Review any changes carefully to ensure they continue to meet your organization's security requirements.