Does ACF2 16.0 support 8 to 12 character length password with z/OS 2.3?

Products

• ACF2
• ACF2 - DB2 Option
• ACF2 for zVM
• ACF2 - z/OS
• ACF2 - MISC

Issue/Introduction

Presently running CA ACF2 for zOS r16, with z/OS version 2.1 but migrating to z/OS 2.3
Does CA ACF2 16.0 support 8 to 12 character length password with z/OS 2.3 ?

Environment

z/OS 2.3
ACF2 16.0
 

Resolution

ACF2 Password and Password Phrase restrictions and options.

• A password can be a maximum length of 8 characters.
• A password is considered a passphrase, if it is more than 8 characters.
• CA ACF2 supports up to 100 character passphrase.
• A password or passphrase is considered one (1) factor authentication.
• CA ACF2 16.0 also supports Multi-factor authentication (IBM MFA & CA AAM).

From the CA ACF2 perspective, to allow Passphrase support change the GSO PWPHRASE record to ALLOW passphrase validation and add PWPALLOW privilege to the userID record.  Sites can have a mix of user's that are allowed passphrase or just password. 

However, sites may have to evaluate each 'application' individually, to determine if it supports passphrase.
Implementation of passwords or passphrase does not require any changes to z/OS.