RE: Long passwords in V5R2

["Graap, Ken" <keg@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Patrick .... Thanx for the information ... Your advice will be followed. We
will keep the length at 10 and go to level 2 password control....

thanx!

Kenneth

-----Original Message-----
From: Patrick Botz [mailto:botz@xxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Friday, November 14, 2003 6:18 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: RE: Long passwords in V5R2



It is important to understand Al's definition of ugly.  Ugly = not the way
it was before :-) Just a little ribbing Al.

There are interoperability problems with Win95/NT/ME platforms. If you have
systems running these windows platforms, you might run into problems with
those systems being able to use things like Netserver. This has become a
lot less of an issue since the pre-GA of V5R1 as people move away from
unsupported MS systems.

If you have multiple OS/400 systems they all have to be set to the same
password level if you want a high level of interoperability between them.

If you have 3rd party software or software you have built yourself that
performs authentication itself, then unless that software has been changed
to accomodate longer passwords there may be interoperability problems.

The best way to test is to leave your password composition rules the way
they are today and to set the max length to 10. Then change the password
level to 2. If you run into interoperability problems then you will be able
to switch back to 0 without forcing everyone to change their passwords.

Note that changing to level 1 or 3 will remove the copy of your password
encrypted with the windows algorithm. If you need compatibility with
windows, you probably don't want to go these levels. If you don't need
windows compatibility with your passwords then it's a good idea to pick one
of these levels after testing at level 2.

Patrick Botz