Password-protected data sets

When a data set is both password-protected and RACF-protected, access to the data set is authorized through RACF® authorization checking. If an authorization request for a password-protected data set is satisfied by a RACF global access table entry or a RACF data set profile, password checking is ignored.

When a data set is password-protected but not RACF-protected, access to the data set is authorized through password protection. When a RACF-protected data set is moved to a system without RACF support, you cannot perform authorization checking. Therefore, after you have installed RACF, your users might need to maintain password protection only for those data sets that:

Are not RACF-protected
Are RACF-protected and are used on other systems that do not have RACF support

Password protection is not used for SMS-managed data sets. Therefore, if your installation has procedures that use password protection for data sets, you must modify these procedures accordingly.