Password

From Socs Info Wiki

This document provides information related to computer account passwords at the School of Computer Science, of McGill University.

Contents 1 General 2 Changing 2.1 If you know your current password... 2.2 If you don't know your current password...

General

Passwords are synchronized between Unix, Windows, and Mail. All passwords must be at least 8 characters long, and must contain at least one character from three of the following character sets:

• lower case letter
• upper case letter
• number
• symbol
• Not a dictionary word

Changing

If you know your current password...

The first step is to log into mimi. (You can also use our servers willy and skinner for this)

 [abatko][localhost][~] {1} ssh mimi
abatko@mimi's password:

Before going to the second step you can verify if your password is complex enough. Use single quotes around your password, to avoid shell interpretation.

 [abatko][mimi][~] {1} checkpasswd 'Your_Password_Here'

The second step is to enter the command passwd.

 [abatko][mimi][~] {1} passwd

Anyone who has a username greater than 8 characters must pass his/her username to the command as an argument.

We enforce strong passwords, these are the requirements:

Your password should be a minimum of 8 characters.
Your password should not be a dictionary word.
Your password needs to have at least 3 of the following: Upper, Lower, Digit, Special characters

If you don't know your current password...

You will have to obtain a new password. During lab consultant hours (and in the Trottier building), you can ask a consultant to do this for you. During SOCS Help Desk hours you can get your password changed by the systems staff. In both cases you must bring your student ID card.

OR

You can log on to: http://newpassword.cs.mcgill.ca

You'll need to know your first.last@mail.mcgill.ca credentials to reset it.