Changing Your Password

The first thing you should do, upon getting a new account, is change your password. The password you are given is known to the persons who set up your account. Your password should be known by no one other than yourself. You can change your password at any time, and you should change it whenever anyone may have learned it. It's a violation of Texas state law to reveal your password to anyone!

Choosing a password:

Choose a password that is not too obvious to a person who might be trying to guess it--your spouse's name, your initials, and your birthdate are out! Make it something you will have no difficulty in remembering--a password that you write down is no security protection at all. You can use any combination of small letters, capital letters, symbols, spaces, and/or numbers; remember that capital letters are considered by the UNIX system as distinct from lower-case letters. A good password will have a mix of symbols, numbers, and letters; just letters alone or just numbers alone is not good.

We suggest NOT using passwords that:

1> are your userid Ex: albert 2> are some portion of your name Ex: jones, meyrick 3> are in the on-line dictionary (/usr/dict/words) Ex: table, book 4> are three letters (all the same) Ex: aaa 5> are any of the above backwards or with strange capitialization Ex: senoj JonEs, TaBle, AaA

We recommend using nonsense words that are easy to remember, but not in the dictionary.

How to change your password: At the UNIX (condor%) prompt, type in the command

yppasswd

The system then requests your old password. Type it in. The system then asks for your new password. Type it in carefully. The system will then ask you to type it in again, in case of typographical errors. Type it in, and if you have typed it the same way twice, you're through. If you have made an error and typed in two different passwords, the system will let you know.

What if I forget my password?

If you cannot remember your password, you can ask the System Support Center to assign you a new one. Walk over to room H302, in the service building above the loading dock--be sure to bring your Baylor ID. If you have any questions, call Systems Support at 798-3535, and, at the voice menu, select 8.

-peb