Changing Your Password

Your user ID identifies you to RACF® and your password verifies your identity. You have to change your password after a certain interval of time to help make sure that you are the only person who knows it. You can also make the time interval between changing your password shorter at the time you change your password.

For example, you should change your password if you suspect that your password has become known to others. Or, perhaps you would prefer to change your password more frequently than your installation requires.

Note: You may also change your password while logging on to the system. This is the most common way of changing your password. If your password has expired, RACF prompts you for a new password when you enter the old one. Before your password expires, you can clear the display, then enter the LOGON command with your user ID. RACF then prompts you for your password. At this time, you can enter both the current password and a new one.
RACF has the following rules for passwords:
  • The length can be 1 to 8 characters
  • Valid characters are alphabetic uppercase (A–Z), numeric (0–9), and national (# (X'7B'), @ (X'7C'), and $ (X'5B')). If your installation supports mixed case passwords, alphabetic lowercase characters (a-z) are also accepted in passwords. If your installation does not support mixed case passwords, any lowercase characters that you enter for your password are folded to uppercase. If you don't know whether mixed case passwords are supported, ask your security administrator.
    If your installation supports special characters in passwords, symbolic characters other than @, #, or $ that can be used are:

In addition, your installation has password rules. If you do not know the rules, choose a password following the format of your current password. RACF might not allow you to reuse a previous password. Ask your RACF security administrator for an explanation of your installation's rules for passwords.