Changing password standards

Question: We're looking to increase the controls of passwords eg to enforce 8 alpha numeric characters rather than 6+ any characters.

If anyone has tried this:

- how did you deal with users whose current password didn't meet the new criteria (eg have a 90 day moratorium to allow everyone to change once)
- did internal system passwords get affected
- anything else we should think about?

We won't get away with just issuing a dictat and switching things off

Answer:
Channging 6 -> 8 should have no other affect.

Default will make them change the password and ccomply with your rule WHEN they next have to CHANGE the password. I.e. is would only apply to Dialog users at next login after 90 days, all else remaining the same.

Depending on your release, more parameters can be chosen to force an even better password... (It hurt saying that... ) See the login/* params.

In higher releases of SAP, you can also activate the check against the current password even if still in the validity period, but SAP made a mess of it LONG before this was available so some tramendous surprises could be coming your way.

Tarr

Answer:
If you want to force all users to reset their password after you set the parameters and restart your system you will have to write a short ABAP to change the LTIME field in USR02 to 00:00:00. This will force them to change their password at the next logon.

DO note, changing the table directly does not create a change history record that you requested a forced change and in some relms considered inappropriate.

Answer:
John´s suggestion will force ALL users to reset their password, and at reset they will be required to enter a 8 character password. This will punish the innocent (even if a very light punishment).

A more corporal punishment could befall your communication users (if you are still using the type at all) when LTIME gets set to 0, depending on your release. Some of the symptoms are removed by changing the user type to system.

If you only want those who have a non-compliant password to have to reset it before the 90 days has expired, you have to use another way to determine at logon whether the valid password used is breaching a login/* param (e.g the length), and if so then call the new password routine which is hiding behind F5 instead of proceding further with the logon banana.

A tricky set of params with several dependencies could do it for you, but you will be better off (and save yourself a lot of head-ache) by waiting the 0 to 90 days to get the dialog users accross the border to safety while attending to other things.

For example, you could use the 0 to 90 days to (periodically) change the non-dialog users passwords or deactivate them because, contrary to popular belief, they too can logon to the system and a password is not required.

Tarr

Answer:
Thanks folks

Answer:
A password is not required by non-dialog users logging oin to the system? This is the biggest news since the original release of R/3. Fortunately it isn't true.

There may be stored passwords but there is always a password.

Answer:
A password is not required by non-dialog users logging oin to the system? This is the biggest news since the original release of R/3. Fortunately it isn't true.

There may be stored passwords but there is always a password.

Sorry, you are correct. It is not possible to log onto SAP without valid password dates.

Answer:
Strictly speaking there is always a password or credentials but credentials require a password somewhere in the scheme of things.