1. Problem
   

   My E-mail browser (e.g. Outlook Express, Netscape, Mozilla, PC-Pine, Thunderbird) keeps asking for a password and won't let me check my E-mail, or sends me messages saying that my password will expire in some number of days.
   
   Some E-mail browsers do not pass along the mail server's "your password will expire in N days" warnings (the MacOS X "Mail.app" browser is a prime example of such a poorly-written piece of software), so users of such browsers may find that the first they hear that their password will expire soon is after it has expired and it's too late for the easy solution.
   
   

2. Solution
   The currently preferred method of remotely logging onto the departmental mail server is to use ssh instead of telnet. The syntax is the same on Unix/Linux systems, but you may under some circumstances have to use "ssh -c 3des  username@mail.pa.msu.edu" instead of just "ssh mail.pa.msu.edu".
   There are various ssh client programs available on Windows and Mac systems.
   
   Unfortunately, if your password has already expired, ssh will not give you the ability to log in "one last time" to reset it, the way telnet may. For this reason, it is best that you change your password during the warning period and not let it actually expire.
   

   If ssh is not available, most computers now include a telnet client with the base operating system. The only exception to this: versions of MacOS before version X, where separate freeware or commercial telnet software has to be installed.
   
   To initiate a telnet session, simply type "telnet mail.pa.msu.edu" (minus the " double quotation marks) from a shell prompt (or in Windows, click on the Start Menu, choose Run, and enter it there).

   Sample Login

   From some other computer, log into mail.pa.msu.edu using telnet(or ssh):
   
   

   $ telnet mail.pa.msu.edu
   login: username
   Type your mail.pa.msu.edu username here.
   Password:
   Type your current mail.pa.msu.edu password here (be careful of the difference between upper- and lower-case letters); passwords you type will not be echoed to the screen.
   

   If your password has just expired, you will see the following:

   Choose a new password.
   Enter login password:
   Type your current mail.pa.msu.edu password again here.
   
   (Yes, we know that it has just told you to choose a new password, but it wants to see the old one again first, and Sun only knows why they don't use some phrase such as "Enter current login password:" to resolve the ambiguity.)
   
   New password:
   Type your new mail.pa.msu.edu password here.
   Re-enter new password:
   Type your new mail.pa.msu.edu password again here.
   

   And then you're on mail.pa.msu.edu!

   ---

   If your password has not yet expired, the "new password" dialog will not occur, and you will be in a login shell.
   Now type:

         passwd
   

   and the system will prompt you for the information it wants, as in the above example.

   If your username contains more than 8 characters, you will have to type "passwd  yourusername" instead of just "passwd" (for technical reasons we won't go into here).

   ---

   
   
3. More Information
   

   If your password expires on a Solaris system such as our mail server, the system will give you some number of chances to log in again using telnet (not ssh) as long as you immediately change your password as part of the log-in process. This procedure, however, includes a very ambiguously worded prompt, so if you have trouble, please refer to the sample login above.

   On mail.pa.msu.edu, passwords are by default set to expire after six and a half months (28 weeks, to be precise). The system should warn you when you log in to a terminal session ("telnet" or "ssh") if you are within 14 days of password expiration, in which case you can set your own new password using the "passwd" command in a telnet or ssh session.

   Note that you will receive no warning during an "ftp" session, and there is no procedure to reset a password from within an "ftp" session or an IMAP E-mail reading session.

   After the warning period is over, and your password has expired, ssh will not be able to access your account to let you set a new password.

   The IMAP E-mail server software on mail.pa.msu.edu will provide a "Password will expire in N days" warning when you connect to it with your E-mail client software. Some IMAP E-mail clients (Netscape Messenger and recent versions of Microsoft Outlook Express, for example) will pass along this warning, while others (MacOS X's Mail.app and older versions of Microsoft Outlook Express, for example) see the message that the IMAP server gives them, but do not pass it along to the user. In either case, E-mail clients provide no way for users to reset their passwords on the IMAP E-mail server mail.
   
   Currently,  mail.pa.msu.edu is run on the system faraday.pa.msu.edu, while the departmental web server which serves out users' home pages runs on the system kepler.pa.msu.edu.  Changing your password on one does not automatically change the password on the other, but passwords are synchronized between them periodically, so it is generally sufficient to just change the mail.pa.msu.edu password (i.e., on faraday).  Your new password will begin to work on the other system within a few days. Any web-accessible files can be accessed by logging into either system.

   ---

   Passwords on mail.pa.msu.edu:
   • must be 6 to 8 characters long (or longer, but the system will ignore anything after the first 8);
   • must include in the first 8 characters at least two alphabetical characters (so they can't be all numerals);
   • must include in the first 8 characters at least one non-alphabetical character (numeral or common punctuation mark such as "." or "-"); and
   • must not be too similar to your username (the system tests for uppercasing of letters and simple permutations of the username's characters).

   ---

   Common sources of confusion:
   • Solaris's usernames and passwords are case-sensitive.
   • passwords written down in handwriting which doesn't readily distinguish between one or more sets of similar-appearing characters such as:
      
     

     0, o, O

     l, I, 1, /, \, |

     2, z, Z

     4, 9, g, q

     5, s, S

     ~, ^, -, _, .

     
     and all other letters whose upper-case version is just a larger version of the lower-case letter.

Questions not covered in this FAQ? Make sure to send them in!

Last Updated: 2005-03-21 by G J Perkins.