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password changes not taking effect

 
David G. Douthitt
Regular Advisor

password changes not taking effect

I've a question about changing passwords for users (as SYSTEM).

Given that a user is already on the system, and asks for password change. I go into SYS$SYSTEM:AUTHORIZE and change the password (with MODI USER/PASSWORD= ). No problem there.

The problem comes up when they try to login. Even with the correct password, they still get rejected. Looking at SHO INTR shows their attempt. Clearing attempts with DELETE/INTR doesn't seem to help - or at least not right away.

This problem seems to go away if you DELETE/INTR and/or change password with AUTHORIZE in the right order or at the right time.

What am I missing here?

Thanks!
14 REPLIES 14
labadie_1
Honored Contributor

Re: password changes not taking effect

If you do
$ reply/ena=secu
before they log, what messages do you get when they log ?

before telling them to log in, try yourself with
$ dir 0"user newpassword"::
and see if you get an error message or a listing of the files in sys$login of the user.

Do you have special code in sylogin.com (or the name this procedure has on your site) ?
David G. Douthitt
Regular Advisor

Re: password changes not taking effect

More information: this is on a system running OpenVMS 8.3. The user was listed as having 16 login-fails; now (hour or two later) there are no login-fails.
Phillip Thayer
Esteemed Contributor

Re: password changes not taking effect

There may already have been an intruder record before you changed the password. That means the user would not be allowed to login to the system at all, even with the new password. You should always check and delete any intruder records that may be hanging around for any user that you change a password for. Of course that would be done ONLY after checking to see if the actual person that the account belongs to confirms that they truly are wanting to change their password.

Phil
Once it's in production it's all bugs after that.
David G. Douthitt
Regular Advisor

Re: password changes not taking effect

In the specific case that prompted this question, the user has now been able to login (which probably explains the 0 login-fails).

This problem, however, has happened before and probably will again. It only happens occasionally. I keep thinking that there must be another audit "record" or "event" stored somewhere for a particular user, which is not cleared by DELETE/INTR and which causes them to be placed in an INTR record instead of being let in as security warrants.

How does the DIR 0"" command work?
Phillip Thayer
Esteemed Contributor

Re: password changes not taking effect

From the DCL manual explaining DELETE/INTRUSION_RECORD:

--------------------------------------------

Description
Use the DELETE/INTRUSION_RECORD command to remove an entry from the break-in database. For example, if the user Hammer repeatedly attempted to log in to terminal TTA24 with an expired password, the SHOW INTRUSION command would display the following entry:


Intrusion Type Count Expiration Source

TERM_USER INTRUDER 9 10:29:39.16 TTA24:HAMMER



The terminal is locked out of the system because the login failure limit has been reached. When Hammer approaches you and you identify the problem as an expired password, you can then use the DELETE/INTRUSION command to remove the record from the break-in database.

-------------------------------------------

You need to delete all intrusion records before the account will be able to log in again. Also, remember that intrusion records will have the source of the intrusion which can include terminal server named, IP addresses/domains or node names. You need to make sure you delete ALL intrusion records for the user.

Phil
Once it's in production it's all bugs after that.
David G. Douthitt
Regular Advisor

Re: password changes not taking effect

If I understand this correctly - what is happening is:

1. User pwd changed
2. User says can't login
3. Delete Intruder Records
4. User says can't login
5. User pwd changed
6. User says Finally - it works!

The right way is to:

1. Check Intr Records and Delete if needed
2. Change password
3. User says You're Wonderful!

Did I get that right?
Volker Halle
Honored Contributor

Re: password changes not taking effect

... and don't forget to check that the user is the user she/he claims to be !

Volker.
labadie_1
Honored Contributor

Re: password changes not taking effect

The dir 0"user password":: does a dir on the same node (0 means itself) withe the user user :-)
in the syntax, :: means a Vms node.

The syntax for a file is
node::disk:file.ext;version
or
node"user password"::disk:file.ext;version

if you use Decnet proxies, you can avoid the string "user password"
Phillip Thayer
Esteemed Contributor

Re: password changes not taking effect

You got it!

And Volker is also right, check that the user is actually the user they claim to be.

Phil
Once it's in production it's all bugs after that.