Logins and Passwords

These are the login prompts for Tigger and Icarus, respectively.

For Tigger accounts, faculty and staff should make arrangements with the online phonebook representative in their department to receive a Net ID. For students, Net ID's are pre-made before their first day of class. A faculty/staff Net ID will usually be comprised of 8 characters at the choosing of the user. For students, the Net ID will be the first letter of their first name, the beginning 5 letters of their last name, followed by a number. The following are examples:

To activate your account on the respective computer, (Tigger or Icarus) users can click on the "Create Account" tab in ANY UIC Public Lab. A valid I-Card is needed to create the account. (Also, please wait at least 24 hours after your Net ID is established to set up your Tigger/Icarus account.)

Once you are set, you type in your login at the "login:" prompt. After hitting [ENTER], you then type in the password. For security reasons, your password will not display as it is being typed. If you have successfully logged in, you will see a "Welcome" message. Click here to see a video demo of a Tigger login. (229K)

Changing the Password

Changing the password emcompasses the same procedure in both Tigger and Icarus with one important exception, which we will get to near the end of this section. Typing the command "passwd" will allow you to change your password. It is recommended you do this every 4-6 weeks to discourage others from attempting to log on as you. Both Tigger and Icarus force you to change the password every three months or so.

Some advice on passwords:

• Use a combination of letters and numbers (in fact, it is required you do so by both)
• Never make it a password people could easily guess about you. Names of relatives or birthdays can be found out by others
• NEVER, EVER tell your password to ANYBODY. If you forget your password, you MUST go to the CSO Office (2267 SEL) and get a new password. (It cannot be done over the phone or by email.) The CSO will not know your password: they merely write a new password into your account

When you type "passwd," you will first be prompted to type in your old password and hit [ENTER]. Then, you will type in the new password TWICE (separating each by an [ENTER]) to verify that you wish to change the password. If you did it correctly, you will get the standard prompt. ($ for Tigger, home directory for Icarus)

A TIGGER password must have:

• A minimum of 5 characters
• At least 3 alphabetic characters
• At least 2 non-alphabetic characters
• No more than 8 of the same character

An ICARUS password must have:

• A minimum of 6 characters
• At least 2 alphabetic characters
• At least 1 non-alphabetic character

Here's what changing the password looks like in Tigger. Note the requirements for a valid password.

This is how it looks when you don't type in the password according to requirements in Icarus.