Spring Into Linux®

Passwords

Passwords are important to the security of your Linux system. They protect you from unauthorized use both from your terminal and from the Internet. Your root password is particularly important. In general, make your password difficult for someone to guess, but easy for you to remember. Some suggestions for creating passwords are:

• Use a mixture of characters, including uppercase letters, lowercase letters, numbers, and punctuation.

• Use at least 8 characters.

• The starting letters of a favorite saying make a password that's hard to guess. For instance, Take me out to the Ball Game! becomes TmottBG!.

• Substitute numbers for letters, such as 1 (one) for l (L) or 0 (zero) for o (oh). For instance, Tm0ttBG!.

Some practices to avoid are:

• Don't ...