Subsections

• Guidelines for Choosing a Good Password
• Changing Your Password

Changing Your Password

We recommend that you change your password as soon as possible after you receive your Rensselaer userID, and that you change it frequently thereafter. Anyone who obtains your password and uses your account can not only read all your files and send potentially incriminating mail in your name, but can also access your personal financial information and grades via the Student Information System (SIS) on RCS.

Guidelines for Choosing a Good Password

• Choose a password that has exactly eight characters. (Although most of RCS will accept passwords longer than that, there are some applications on some platforms that do not.)
• Include at least one number, symbol, or punctuation mark somewhere in the middle of your password. Doing this makes it more difficult for someone to guess your password.
• Since RCS passwords are case-sensitive, avoid using mixed case letters. Specifically, you should not use uppercase letters in your password, as they can cause problems on several platforms, such as Windows 95 and 98 PCs, and on SGI workstations.
• Choose a password you can remember without writing it down, but nothing as obvious as a name or any personal information about yourself, or a word from the dictionary. Make a password complicated enough so that someone who might be looking over your shoulder cannot easily determine it from your keystrokes.

Changing Your Password

You can change your RCS password in one of two ways. To change it on-line via RPInfo:

1.

First, select the Computing & Info. Services link from the Computing section of the RPInfo homepage.

2.

From the resulting CIS homepage, click on the Accounts link, then click on the subsequent RCS Accounts (Computer)), Changing Your RCS Account Password, and Change your password links.

3.

The system will prompt you to verify your identity by entering your RCS userID and current password.

4.

Follow the directions that appear on the screen to change you password. (Please note that the system also allows you to test your potential new password before you actually set it.)

It is also possible to change your password by issuing the UNIX passwd command. To do this:

1.

First open a window on an RCS UNIX workstation by left-clicking on the UNIX: Start a UNIX Window option in the RCS Applications menu.

2.

When the UNIX window appears, enter the following command at the UNIX prompt:

passwd

3.

Follow the instructions displayed on the screen to change your password.

4.

The system will prompt you for your old password, and then for your new one. Since your password will not appear as you type, the system will prompt you for your new password again to ensure you didn't make any typing errors. The password will be changed only if the two new password entries match.

5.

Remember, UNIX is case-sensitive, so you must enter any upper- or lowercase letters in your password in exactly the same way. However, remember that we do not recommend using uppercase letters in your password.

The password change will take effect immediately.