For password rules, RACF® checks whether the same rules are defined on each node. The rules do not have to be defined in the same order. For example, if two RRSF nodes each have two password rules, and the first rule is defined as RULE1 on the first node and as RULE2 on the second node, and the second rule is defined as RULE2 on the first node and as RULE1 on the second node, then RACF considers the password rules to be the same and does not issue a warning.

However, if a third rule is defined on the first node, but not on the second node, RACF detects a mismatch between the nodes. RACF then issues a warning for each RULEx that does not match on the two nodes. In this example, RACF would warn that RULE1 does not match on the two nodes, that RULE2 does not match on the two nodes, and that RULE3 does not match on the two nodes. Therefore, if one node contains a subset of the rules on another node, consider defining the common subset using the same SETROPTS PASSWORD(RULEx) commands, to reduce the number of warning messages RACF issues.