Changing Your Password

Passwords must be changed from a unix machine or server. Once logged in, run the "passwd" command. Please note that successful password changes may take up to 30 minutes to propagate.

Forgotten Password?

Forgotten passwords may be changed in person with your UCID card at our Help Desk in Math Sciences 151. Help Desk hours are Monday to Friday 8:30am to 12:00pm and 1:00pm to 4:30pm.

Changing your Initial Password

1. Wait 15 - 30 minutes for your new account to become active
2. Log onto a Linux machine in the main CPSC undergrad lab located on the first floor of the Math Sciences building (or at the worksttation located in the main CPSC office, ICT 602)
3. Open a terminal session by selecting Applications/Accessories/Terminal from upper left menu
4. In the terminal window, type "passwd" and follow the prompts
5. Wait 30 minutes for your new password to update throughout the system

Hints On Selecting Good Passwords

Good passwords must be easy for you to remember, but difficult for others to guess.

A good password must:

• Be 8 characters long
• Contain both upper and lower case characters
• Contain special characters such as numbers and symbols
• Not be written down

Some suggestions:

• Make an acronym from a phrase/song/poem
• Take some short words and string them together joined with funny characters
• Perform a transmogrification on a string

Example Password Creation

Easy to remember phrase: "Mondays are the reason why I like fishing"
Take the first letters of the phrase: Matrwilf
Replace the 'a' with a '@' and the 'l' with a '!': M@trwi!f
Reverse the password: f!iwrt@M

Please try to choose extremely good passwords. Recent advances in machine speed and guessing software armed with excellent dictionaries have made the threat of someone guessing your password very serious. Also, using foreign words or proper names is not a good strategy, as password-cracking dictionaries (i.e. the one we use to test) contain such words.

Please note that passwords may be longer than 8 characters but in order for your Windows drive (W:) to be mapped automatically upon log in to the PC Domain, it must be at most 8 characters long.