HPE: Receiving "Invalid User Name or Password" Error Message When Attempting to Logon at a TACL

HPE: Receiving "Invalid User Name or Password" Error Message When Attempting to Logon at a TACL

1. Check into whether the password contains any TACL metacharacters.  The following are defined by HPE
    as TACL metacharacters:

 

Character(s)

Name

Description

[]

Square brackets

Causes TACL to expand the enclosed text

 

==

Double equal signs

Specifies a comment from the equal signs to the end of the line

 

{ }

Pairs of braces

Specifies a label; used in #CASE, #DEF, #IF, and #LOOP functions

For example, |THEN| and |ELSE| are labels. For more information about enclosures and labels, see Function Calls.

| |

Pair of vertical lines

Specifies a label; used in #CASE, #DEF, #IF, and #LOOP functions

For example, |THEN| and |ELSE| are labels. For more information about enclosures and labels, see Function Calls.

~

Tilde

Changes the interpretation of the next character (or in the case of double equal signs two characters)

 

 

2. If one of the password characters is a TACL metacharacter, then the TACL built-in variable #INFORMAT
   should be set to PLAIN to allow TACL to interpret the metacharacter as an ordinary character.  From the
   HPE NonStop TACL User Guide:

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Metacharacters

The interpretation of special characters as metacharacters depends on the setting of the #INFORMAT Built-In Variable. The display of special characters depends on the setting of the #OUTFORMAT Built-In Variable.

The #INFORMAT built-in variable affects the interpretation of special characters read from the IN file, including terminal input and files read by the OBEY command. #INFORMAT can have one of three values:

  • TACL: Metacharacters have full effect.

  • PLAIN: Metacharacters are treated as ordinary characters.

  • QUOTED: If metacharacters are contained within quotation marks (? ?), they are treated as ordinary text.

?TACL MACRO files, ?TACL ROUTINE files, and library files read by LOAD or #LOAD are read in TACL format unless they contain ?FORMAT directives that specify PLAIN or QUOTED format. For more information about the ?FORMAT directive, see Statements and Programs.

TACL treats metacharacters as PLAIN when they are transmitted by #REQUESTER or #SERVER, so characters obtained from these functions do not retain their special properties. For example, square brackets in text obtained from a file opened by #REQUESTER do not cause enclosed text to be expanded. This also applies to FILETOVAR and VARTOFILE, which use the #REQUESTER built-in function.

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The following are valid characters for passwords in the Guardian environment:         

     a-z, A-Z, 0-9, ~, !, @, #, $, %, ^, &, *, (, ), ', :, ., ?, /, <, >, {, }, [, ], =, -, _, +, \, `, and |.

  The following characters are not allowed:     

     Comma (,)
     Semicolon (;)
     Double Quotation marks (? ?)

The following characters may not be valid depending on the configuration of the TACL environment{ } & [ ] ~ % | , ; ?

This would be determined though what is shown via the #INFORMAT built-in.  If #INFORMAT is PLAIN, then more special characters are allowed. 

Unless the Safeguard global parameter PASSWORD-SPACES-ALLOWED  is set to ON, you will not be able to use spaces in a password anywhere between the first and last characters (on those systems where PASSWORD-SPACES-ALLOWED is a valid parameter)

Using a comma, semicolon or double quotation mark in the password fields of the XSM GUI would immediately deny the user the ability to change the password, so you would get an error before even attempting the password change.  

4.  If the XYGATE Password Quality (XPQ) product is installed and configured on the system, certain characters can be excluded from being used in passwords by the EXCLUDE_CHARS or 
     EXCLUDE_CONTROL_CHARS keywords.  See the XYGATE Password Quality manual for more details

5.  If XPQ is in use on the system and it is used generate passwords, certain characters can be excluded from generated passwords by  the GENERATE_EXCLUDE_CHARS keyword.  See the
     XYGATE Password  Quality manual for more details


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