Accounts, Logins, and Passwords
About UCSF Computer Accounts
Faculty, students, and staff at UCSF are granted access to many different computer systems. For example, some of these are called Exchange, GALEN, and STOR. Currently, most of these computer systems have their own sets of logins and passwords -- your login and password for one doesn't necessarily match your login and password for another.
New Students Have Some Accounts That Match
To make it easier for you to remember your various logins and passwords, several (but not all) UCSF departments have agreed to set logins and passwords for new students so that they match. Although one login and password works for multiple systems, some systems are connected to each other, yet some are separate and do not share authentication processes.
It's helpful to understand these distinctions when you want to change your password for any particular account.
Managing Your Passwords
Since keeping track of dozens or hundreds of passwords can be difficult to manage, special software exists to help you manage them all. For instance, you can enter all your passwords into a single encrypted file, then access the file using one special master password that you create. See Managing Your Passwords for details.
Strong Passwords Required for E-mail Accounts
UCSF requires that you use a strong password for your e-mail account. For example, it must be at least 7 characters long and must be changed every 6 months. For details, see Strong passwords policy requires you to use a new password.
Learn More
Go To: Computer Services
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Changing Your Passwords
Some UCSF systems enable you to change your password.
When you change a password, it might change for that system only or it might change for a few systems. This depends on which password you change.
UCSF has been working toward a single password change that will take effect across all systems, but this effort is not yet complete. For now, if you change your password on any one system, you must keep track of which systems have which passwords. (See "Managing Your Passwords" on this page.)
If most of your passwords are the same, we recommend that you do not change them unless you know or suspect that your password has been compromised.
If you insist on changing your passwords, some systems do not allow you to change your password, so it is not possible to convert all your passwords to a single password of your choice.
How to choose a password
Before changing a password for any account, learn how to choose a password so that it is unlikely to be guessed by humans or computers.
How to change a password
Lost or forgotten a password?
For each account, the List of Accounts describes:
- what the account provides
- how to change the password, and
- lost password procedures.
It also describes which of your account passwords automatically change when you change a particular password.
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