Oracle Fusion Middleware Administration Guide for Oracle Directory Server Enterprise Edition

Policy for Password Expiration

This section explains the policy attributes that govern password expiration.

To ensure that users change their passwords regularly, you can configure Directory Server to have passwords expire after the passwords reach a certain age, by setting pwdMaxAge(5dsat).

Users must be informed that their passwords are going to expire. You can configure Directory Server to return a warning that the password used to bind is going to expire. Use pwdExpireWarning(5dsat) to define how long before expiration that the warning should be returned when a client binds. Notice that the client application gets the warning. The user does not get the warning directly. Client applications must notify the end user when the applications receive the warning that the password is about to expire.

You can allow users one or more tries to bind with an expired password, by setting pwdGraceAuthNLimit(5dsat). Users who failed to change their passwords in time can thus still bind to change their passwords. Be aware that, when a user binds with a grace login, the user can perform any operation. A grace login works as if the password had not expired.

Directory Server updates the operational attribute pwdChangedTime(5dsat) every time that the password on the entry is modified. As a result, if you wait to enable password expiration, user passwords that have already aged expire immediately when you enable password expiration. Use warnings and grace logins if this behavior is not what you intend.