Use Password (-P) together with the User ID (-U) connection parameter to specify the user ID and user account password when connecting to an OpenEdge RDBMS, either at ABL application startup or when executing the ABL CONNECT statement.

Operating system and syntax UNIX / Windows -P password
Use with Maximum value Minimum value Single-user default Multi-user default
Client Connection — — — —
password
The password of the user account connecting to the database.

By default, password is a cleartext string. However, you may require an encoded version of password when security is a concern (for example, when including passwords in startup (.pf) files). You can generate and use an encoded password by doing the following:

  1. Start Proenv.
  2. Create the encoded password using the genpassword utility:
    genpassword -password "clear_text" -prefix xxxxx

    where clear_text is a cleartext password and xxxxx is the encoding prefix..

    Proenv returns a message displaying encoded version of the password.

  3. Add to the encoded password using the double colon (::) separator (prefix::password). The prefix is necessary so that OpenEdge will properly interpret the string as an encoded value. Without the prefix, the string would be processed as if it were cleartext and authentication would fail.

    For information on encoding prefixes, see Encoding prefixes in Learn about Security and Auditing.

For information about generating and using encoded passwords in the ABL, see Password encoding in OpenEdge Programming Interfaces.

OpenEdge authenticates the user ID and password specified by the -U and -P parameters against the user account system associated with the user's OpenEdge security domain. If a user account is found that matches the specified user ID and password, OpenEdge completes the database connection with the specified connection identity. Otherwise, the user is not allowed to connect to the database. If the database is multi-tenant, a successful connection also sets the user's tenancy.

For more information on authenticating users when connecting to a database, see the User ID (-U) parameter entry.

Note:
  • The -P value is the same as the value of the PRIMARY-PASSPHRASE attribute on a client-principal object handle used in an ABL application. It has nothing to do with the domain access code that you specify for the configuration of a user's OpenEdge security domain.
  • With certain DataServers, the -P and -U parameters pass DataServer login information to the foreign (non-OpenEdge) database. For more information, see your DataServer documentation.
  • If you are connecting to an encrypted database, you might have to provide a key store passphrase as well as a user password, depending on how the database is started. For more information on encrypted databases and how to connect to them, see the sections on Transparent Data Encryption in Learn about Security and Auditing and Manage the OpenEdge Database.