You should change your password immediately after logging on to
any system for the first time. You can use passwd command to change
your login password at any time. To do so, simply type
passwd and respond to the questions that follow. You will
be asked to supply your OLD password for verification and then your new
password. After entering the new password, you must type it in again to
verify that you typed it correctly. If the passwords do not match,
you will be reprompted to enter a new password, and then to verify
it again. If you typed in your old password incorrectly, the system
will reject your request for a new password.
A password may be composed of as few as five characters if those
characters selected are a combination of both upper and lower case. The
minimum length for a password is six characters if it consists entirely
of either upper or lower case characters. With the exception of the
password that is issued with your account, entirely numeric passwords
are not allowed, at least one non-numeric character must be provided.
Passwords are significant up to 8 places, any extra characters are ignored.
You should use passwords that contain both alpha and numeric characters,
or a combination of alpha characters and special characters ( #%$& (), etc).
You should avoid passwords that are common English words, any word that can be
looked up by a dictionary-checking program, or any password that someone
who knows you can guess (no spouse names, etc). Your password is the only
protection you have against other people using your account. It should
be changed frequently. You should never write down your password or tell
it to anyone. If you should forget your password, you may request that
another one be set for you. You will need to provide proper identification
when requesting a new password.
Please be sure to protect your password and account as you would protect
any other possession of value. Easy to guess passwords are a tremendous security
risk for both you and other users of the system. If your account presents
a security risk to this system because of an insecure password, systems staff may temporarily disable your account.