It is the responsibility of the Asset Administrator, or a partition's delegated administrator, to configure account password complexity rules.

IMPORTANT:

Some Unix systems silently truncate passwords to their maximum allowed length. For example, Macintosh OS X only allows a password of 128 characters. If an Asset Administrator creates a profile with an Account Password Rule that sets the password length to 136 characters, when SPP changes the password for an account governed by that profile, the asset's operating system truncates the new password to the allowable length and does not return an error; however, the full 136-character password is stored in SPP. This causes the following issues:

  • Check Password for that account will fail. When SPP compares the password on the Unix host with the password in SPP, they never match because the Unix host truncated the password generated by SPP.

  • A user will not be able to log in to the Unix host account successfully with the password provided by SPP unless they truncate the password to the allowable length imposed by the operating system.

Navigate to Asset Management > Profiles > View Password Profile Components > Account Password Rules.

To add an account password rule

  1. Click Add to open the New Account Password Rule dialog.
  2. Enter a Name for the account password rule (up to 50 characters).
  3. Enter a Description for the account password rule (up to 255 characters).
  4. Select a partition using the Browse button.
  5. On the Password Rules tab, set the password requirements.

    • Password Length: Set a range for the password allowable length from three to 255 characters. The default is 8 to 64 characters. The maximum length must be equal to or greater than the sum of minimum characters required in the following steps. For example, if the password must have two uppercase letters, two lowercase letters, and two numeric characters, the minimum Password Length must be six. Note that a diacritical letter is one character.

    • First Character Type: Choose one of the following:
      • All: Alphabetical, numeric, or symbols
      • Alphanumeric: Alphabetical or numeric
      • Alphabetic: Only alphabetical characters
    • Last Character Type: Choose one of the following:
      • All: Alphabetical, numeric, or symbols
      • Alphanumeric: Alphabetical or numeric
      • Alphabetic: Only alphabetical characters
    • Repeated Characters: Choose one of the following:
      • Allow repeated characters: Any letters, numbers, or symbols can be repeated in any order, including consecutively.
      • No consecutive repeated characters: No letter, number, or symbol can be repeated after itself. You can restrict the number of consecutively repeated characters later by uppercase letters, lowercase letters, numbers, symbols, or a combination of those.
      • No repeated characters: All letters, numbers, or symbols can only be used once in the password.
    • Allow Uppercase: Select to allow uppercase (capital) letters.

      • Require a Minimum of Uppercase Characters: Enter a number to identify the least number of uppercase letters required. To allow but not require uppercase letters, set this value at zero.
      • Limit Consecutively Repeated Uppercase Characters: If you allowed repeated characters earlier, select the check box to limit the number of consecutively repeated uppercase letters. You must enter a Maximum Allowed Characters value of one or more.
      • Exclude these Uppercase Characters: Enter any uppercase characters you want to exclude from the password. This field is case-sensitive.
    • Allow Lowercase: Select to allow lowercase (small) letters.
      • Require a Minimum of Lowercase Characters: Enter a number to identify the least number of lowercase letters required. To allow but not require lowercase letters, set this value at zero.
      • Limit Consecutively Repeated Lowercase Characters: If you allowed repeated characters earlier, select the check box to limit the number of consecutively repeated lowercase letters. You must enter a Maximum Allowed Characters value of one or more.
      • Excluded these Lowercase Characters: Enter any lowercase characters you want to exclude from the password. This field is case sensitive.
    • Limit Consecutively Repeated Alpha Characters: To set the number of repeated lowercase or uppercase letters combined, enter the Maximum Allowed Characters.

      For example, if you set the Max Allowed at 2 then you can not have more than two alphabet characters next to each other in the password. Using this example, Ab1Cd2EF is valid but AbC1d2EF is not because it has three alphabet characters in a row.

    • Allow Numeric Character (0-9): Select to allow numeric characters in the password.
      •  Require a Minimum of Numeric Characters: Enter a number to identify the amount of numbers required in a password. To allow but not require numbers, set this value at zero.
      • Limit Consecutively Repeated Numeric Characters: Select the check box to limit the number of consecutively repeated numeric characters. You must enter a Maximum Allowed Characters value of one or more.
      • Exclude these Numeric Characters: Enter any numeric characters you want to exclude from the password. This field is case sensitive.
    • Allow Symbols (e.g. @ # $ % &): Select this check box to allow characters that are printable ASCII characters. These often include: ~ ` ! @ # $ % ^ & * ( ) _ - + = { } [ ] \ | : ; " ' < > , . ? /

      • Require a Minimum of Symbols: Enter a number to identify the least number of symbols required. To allow but not require symbols, set this value at zero.
      • Limit Consecutively Repeated Symbols: If you allowed repeated characters earlier, select the check box to limit the number of symbols that can repeat consecutively. You must enter a Maximum Allowed Characters value of one or more.
      • Set the following:
        • Valid Symbols: Select this option to enter allowable special characters. Enter the allowable symbols in the Symbol List text box.
        • Invalid Symbols: Select this option to enter prohibited special characters. Enter the prohibited symbols in the Symbol List text box.
  6. Click Test Rule to check the rules set.
  7. When the rules are complete, click OK.