Password Limitations for Top Secret for z/VSE r3.0

Products

• Top Secret
• Top Secret - LDAP
• Top Secret - VSE

Issue/Introduction

Most z/VSE SubSystems, including CICS, VSE/POWER, VSE/ICCF, etc., internally use Fixed Length Fields, eg. 8 bytes for Userids and Password. Each SubSystem's Password Restrictions vary:

• The IBM z/VSE Interactive Interface (ICCF) Userids support up to only four characters.
  
  
• Native CICS Userids support four and eight characters.
  
  
• IUI IDs and passwords cannot be Mixed case.
  
  
• The VSE ID Card Usernames and Passwords support up to eight characters and doesn't support Mixed Case.

The native VSE Security Manager (BSM) currently supports IDs up to eight characters, and doesn't support Mixed Case. Because of these z/VSE Password limitations, Top Secret for z/VSE r3.0 is unable to support Mixed Case Passwords, Long Passwords and Password Phrases.

Environment

Release:
Component: TSSVSE

Resolution

Userids and Passwords must conform to the BSM standard. Allowing lengths and characters not natively supported by z/VSE, can lead to conflicts and prevent Jobs from running.