Security Management Guide (G06.29+, H06.08+, J06.03+)

Concerns for the System Administration Team
Security Management Guide — 522283-021
6 - 8
Password Length
Password Length
The Guardian environment permits blank passwords, but intruders might be aware of
this situation and use them to log on.
A Safeguard configuration attribute can be used to forbid blank passwords. For
example:
3> SAFECOM ALTER SAFEGUARD, PASSWORD-MINIMUM-LENGTH 12
This command requires that a password be at least 12 characters long the next time a
user changes the password. Use of this command is restricted to super-group
members (or to members of the SECURITY-ADMINISTRATOR security group if that
security group is defined). If the command is restricted, ask an authorized user to issue
the command.
The attribute PASSWORD-MAXIMUM-LENGTH specifies the maximum acceptable
length of a password. The initial value is eight and the maximum value is 64.
Valid Characters in Passwords
The Guardian environment permits the use of following characters in a password:
a-z, A-Z, 0-9, ~, !, @, #, $, %, ^, &, *, (,), ', :, ., ?, /, <, >, {,}, [,], =, -, _ , +, \, `, and
|.
Quality Password and Embedded Spaces
Quality attributes and embedded spaces are included in the password. Safeguard
enforces these pre-determined rules while setting the passwords for user or alias:

PASSWORD-UPPERCASE-REQUIRED - When set to ON, enforces at least one
upper case character to be specified in the password.

PASSWORD-LOWERCASE-REQUIRED - When set to ON, enforces at least one
lower case character to be specified in the password.

PASSWORD-NUMERIC-REQUIRED - When set to ON, enforces at least one
numeric character to be specified in the password.

PASSWORD-SPECIAL-CHAR-REQUIRED - When set to ON, enforces at least
one special character to be specified in the password.

PASSWORD-SPACES-ALLOWED - When set to ON, allows embedded spaces to
be specified in the password. It enables users to use pass phrases in place of
passwords.
Note. The following characters are not allowed:

Comma (,)

Semicolon (;)

Double Quotation marks (“ “)