How To Change Your Password

This applies to all host related functions such as e-mail authentication, ftp, or logging into your shell account.

We have recently upgraded to an authentication structure that is 100% Linux based, the old SunOS 4.1.4 machines are gone. This change means that you can now change your password and shell from any of our public Linux shell servers.

To do this ssh to any of our public access shell servers and login with your existing login and password. If you are using Linux or MacOS, use ssh from within a terminal window. If you are using Windows 10 or 11, if not already enabled then you will need to enable the Windows open-ssh-client service. You can do this from the Programs and Accessories.

Once logged in, type ‘passwd’ followed by return or enter. It will prompt you once for your old password, then again for your new password twice. Passwords can be up to 16 characters in length. We recommend a minimum of eight characters with at least one upper case alphabetic character, one lower case alphabetic character, one numeric character, and one special character (punctuation).

To exit the shell, type ‘exit’ and hit return or type control-D. If you have a normal login shell such as bash, ksh, sh, or csh, this will exit the server entirely.