Selecting a "Good" Password

UNIX (and Windows^® NT) security is predicated on users choosing good passwords and exercising common sense with them.

• do not share your passwords
• change them every 3 to 6 months
• most importantly, maintain different password for each system (work, school, etc) that you have access to.

A good password should:

• be easy to type
• be easy for you to remember but hard for others to guess or crack
• be 6 to 8 characters long
• not consist of dictionary words, names, etc.
• contain at least two non-alphabetical characters
• utilize unusual capitalization, misspellings, characters/symbols, etc.

Example Passwords

Use a common word as a seed for a password

• by itself, hotdog makes a horrible password
• apply some of the tricks above (capitalization, punctuation, and misspellings)
• result, a much better password: H0t!daWg

Alternatively you can use a phrase to generate a password

• I Love To Eat Hotdogs Everyday.
• take the first letters: iltehe
• apply capatialization and substitute puctuation/numbers for letters: Il2e!E

How do I change my Unix password?

Use the passwd command on any Unix workstation.

Preferably, this command should only be run on the console or from a direct ssh connection---using telnet to connect to an intermediate machince and then making an ssh connection to the department is not secure.