Character limitations for passwords and user names

There are password characters that are valid, but must be treated differently when you run the pdadmin utility. These special characters have special meaning to the utility. Enclose the password or user name in double quotation marks (") to escape the special character when:

• Set or changing user passwords by using user modify.
• Log in using login.

Otherwise, you receive an error message.

To escape the double quotation mark special character, enclose the password or user name in double quotation marks and use the backward slash (\) escape character. For example, to escape the password abc"123, type the string "abc\"123" in the pdadmin command when you type the password using the -p option. When the interactive login command is used, no double quotation marks and escape character are needed. The following special characters either must not be used or they must be escaped when using the pdadmin command:

• Comma (,)
• Double quotation (")
• Left parenthesis (()
• Number sign (#)
• Right parenthesis ())

Avoid the use of these characters as the first character in the password when setting or modifying the password with the user modify command:

• Hyphen (-)
• Left brace ({)
• Number sign (#)

Parent topic: Password limitations and characters allowed in object names