Lesson 5 Changing User Passwords

• changing your user password

Your user password

The very first time that you tried to log on to you MPE/iX computer, you probably had to enter your user password in order to log on successfully.

That user password already existed, because your system manager or your account manager assigned that password to your user name. It might be a password that you have trouble remembering, or you might simply like to have a different user password.

You can change your user password if you want to do that—but do not do it so frequently that you have trouble remembering your user password.

If you do not have a user password, you can create one for yourself.

Using the PASSWORD command

In order to change an existing user password, you must know what that password is.

If you are logged on in your account and your group, you would use the PASSWORD command in this fashion:

   PASSWORDReturn

If a password already exists, the computer will ask you to enter the existing password, to prove that you know what it is:

   ENTER OLD USER PASSWORD:

Enter the correct password and press Return. The word that you enter will not appear on your screen. That is to protect you from having anyone see the password that you enter.

If you have entered the existing password correctly, PASSWORD next asks you to enter the new password—the password that you want to have attached to your user name:

   ENTER NEW USER PASSWORD:

Enter the password that you want. The password must begin with a letter of the alphabet. After that first letter, you may add as many as seven more characters—letters or numbers or a combination of letters and numbers.

Again, you will not see the password you enter. Enter it carefully.

Now the computer asks you enter the new password one more time:

   ENTER NEW USER PASSWORD AGAIN:

This step is to ensure that you and the computer agree on what the new password is to be. You will not see the password that you enter.

If the password you enter this time matches the password you entered in the previous step, the computer changes your user password and confirms the change:

   PASSWORD WAS CHANGED SUCCESSFULLY

The change does not become effected until you log off and log back on again.

If the password you enter this second time is different from the password you entered in the step before this, the computer assumes that you made a mistake, stops the password changing process, and gives you a message:

   NEW PASSWORD IS NOT CONSISTENT. (CIERR 2503) PASSWORD WAS NOT CHANGED.

   :_

In this case, the old, existing user password—whatever it was— remains the same. If you still want to change your user password, you must use the PASSWORD again.

If your user name does not have a password, and you would like to create one, use the PASSWORD command.

If there is no existing password for your user name, the computer begins by asking you to enter a (new) password. Then you will be asked to enter the (new) password one more time, to confirm your choice.