1.1 Universal Password Background

Universal Password is managed by the Secure Password Manager, a component of the NMAS™ module (nmas.nlm on NetWare®). The Secure Password Manager simplifies the management of password-based authentication schemes across a wide variety of Novell® products as well as Novell partner products. The management tools expose only one password and do not expose all of the behind-the-scenes processing for backwards compatibility.

Secure Password Manager and the other components that manage or make use of Universal Password are installed as part of the NetWare 6.5 or later and eDirectory™ 8.7.3 or later install; however, Universal Password is not enabled by default. Because all APIs for authentication and setting passwords are moving to support Universal Password, all the existing management tools, when run on clients with these new libraries, automatically work with the Universal Password.

NOTE:Password Management 2.02, a plug-in for Novell eDirectory for iManager 2.x, is available for download at the Novell Free Download Site. Minimum requirements are eDirectory 8.7.3 or later and iManager 2.02 or later. Information on how to download and install this plug-in is available on the download site.

Novell Client™ software supports the Universal Password. It also continues to support the NDS® password for older systems in the network. After Universal Password has been configured and enabled for a user, the Novell Client has the capability of automatically upgrading/migrating the NDS password to the Universal Password.