Dell PowerConnect Brocade 300 Fabric OS Administrator's Guide v7.1.0 - Page 142

5 Password policies • Punctuation Specifies the minimum number of punctuation characters that must appear in the password. All printable, non-alphanumeric punctuation characters except the colon ( : ) are allowed. The default value is zero. The maximum value must be less than or equal to the MinLength value. • MinLength Specifies the minimum length of the password. The minimum can be from 8 to 40 characters. New passwords must be between the minimum length specified and 40 characters. The default value is 8. The maximum value must be greater than or equal to the MinLength value. • Repeat Specifies the length of repeated character sequences that will be disallowed. For example, if the "repeat" value is set to 3, a password "passAAAword" is disallowed because it contains the repeated sequence "AAA". A password of "passAAword" would be allowed because no repeated character sequence exceeds two characters. The range of allowed values is 1 through 40. The default value is 1. • Sequence Specifies the length of sequential character sequences that will be disallowed. A sequential character sequence is defined as a character sequence in which the ASCII value of each contiguous character differs by one. The ASCII value for the characters in the sequence must all be increasing or decreasing. For example, if the "sequence" value is set to 3, a password "passABCword" is disallowed because it contains the sequence "ABC". A password of "passABword" would be allowed because it contains no sequential character sequence exceeding two characters. The range of allowed values is 1 through 40. The default value is 1. When set to 1, sequential characters are not enforced. Example of a password strength policy The following example shows a password strength policy that requires passwords to contain at least 3 uppercase characters, 4 lowercase characters, and 2 numeric digits; the minimum length of the password is 9 characters. > passwdcfg --set -uppercase 3 -lowercase 4 -digits 2 -minlength 9 Password history policy The password history policy prevents users from recycling recently used passwords, and is enforced across all user accounts when users are setting their own passwords. The password history policy is enforced only when a new password is defined. Specify the number of past password values that are disallowed when setting a new password. Allowable password history values range between 0 and 24. If the value is set to 0, it means that the new password cannot be set to the current password, but can be set to the most recent password. The default value is 1, which means the current and one previous password cannot be reused. The value 2 indicates that the current and the two previous passwords cannot be used (and so on, up to 24 passwords). This policy does not verify that a new password meets a minimal standard of difference from prior passwords; rather, it only determines whether or not a newly specified password is identical to one of the specified number (1-24) of previously used passwords. The password history policy is not enforced when an administrator sets a password for another user; instead, the user's password history is preserved and the password set by the administrator is recorded in the user's password history. 142 Fabric OS Administrator's Guide 53-1002745-02