Instance Authentication
With Instance Authentication, InterSystems IRIS verifies the user name and password provided by the user with a user name and password stored in InterSystems IRIS. InterSystems IRIS stores only a hashed version of the password.
On the Edit Definition pages for an InterSystems Service, Password represents the Instance Authentication option. Here is the page for %Service_Console:
![Password setting highlighted with a red box](images/tsqs_cachelogin_20131.png)
You can specify your own pattern for valid passwords on the System-wide Security Parameters page (click [Home] > [System Administration] > [Security] > [System Security] > [System-wide Security Parameters]) on the Management Portal.
![Password pattern setting highlighted with a red box](images/tsqs_passwordpattern_20152.png)
The default patterns are:
-
3.32ANP: Default for minimal and normal security installations. Passwords must have between 3 and 32 characters. Characters can be alphanumeric or punctuation.
-
8.32ANP: Default for locked down security installations. Passwords must have between 8 and 32 characters. Characters can be alphanumeric or punctuation.
To learn more about patterns in InterSystems IRIS, see Pattern Matching in the Operators and Expressions section of Using ObjectScript.