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TechTalk: Too Many Sign-on Attempts at the System

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From: Gregory Leister To: All

Our operators have a habit of miskeying their password at IPL time and wind up varying off the terminal. The end result is having to do an IPL again. They also do this when only the console is active in QCTL and all other subsystems are terminated. Does anyone know an easy way around this? Any suggestions will be helpful.

From: Michael Brock To: Gregory Leister

1. Hire operators that are more careful.

2. Threaten them with finger removal.

3. Follow through with the threat from #2.

4. Kill them.

5. If the console keyboard has Play/Record feature, set up a keyboard macro for .

Obviously, this response is a little tongue-in-cheek. However, I would strongly recommend any of the first four options before the fifth one (unless your situation is such that a macro sign-on would not be a threat to your security), with special emphasis on Option #1. This may seem a little harsh, especially since I don't know your operators, but it seems to me that one or two miskeys is a mistake, but repetitive errors of this type indicate nothing more than sheer carelessness.

From: Greg Leister To: Michael Brock

I agree with all of the options except 5 because of the ability for anyone to get into the system. If it were up to me I would choose #1 in the case of a repeated problem, but I have no control of that situation. Anyhow, my idea was to use a CL program to change the system value for sign-on attempts to *NOMAX, then PWR-DWNSYS to bring the system down, then use their default sign-on program to change it back, but I'm looking for a better way.

From: Ernie Malaga To: Gregory Leister

Change system value QMAXSGNACN to '2'. That only disables the user profile when the password is miskeyed past the maximum number you're allowing in QMAXSIGN. The display station will remain online. At this point, someone else (someone more careful, hopefully) can sign on instead of the klutz since the console is still up and running.

You can repeat this process until you get a successful sign-on or until you run out of user profiles.

Editor's Note: QSECOFR is the only user profile that is never disabled.

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