Modify default passwords for WebSphere Portal

The userid and password information for users is stored in underlying user repository (LDAP or cloudscape). So if you want to change password of the user you have two options

1. Edit Profile Portlet Users can change their password using Edit Profile portlet. This is the only way of changing password if your using database as user repository. But if your using LDAP as user repository then make sure that the user that your using for binding to LDAP has write access
2. Using LDAP Admin Tools:You can change the password directly in the LDAP either using the LDAP Admin tool, or one of the change/reset password tool provided by your organization

If your changing password for non admin user then you dont have to make any other changes. But if your changing password for PortalAdminId user then you will have to take some additional steps

• You will have to change the password in configuration files like wpsconfig.properties. You can take alternate route by deleting passwords from configuration files. Execute WPSConfig.sh delete-password command to delete password from all the configuration files
• Change password using Edit Profile Portlet or LDAP and then restart the Portal server.
• When you restart the portal server you will notice that some of the applications failed to initialize. You should see errors like this in SystemOut.log

  [10/5/08 13:06:21:564 EDT] 00000037 ApplicationMg A   WSVR0200I: Starting application: LWP_Security_Ext[10/5/08 13:06:21:762 EDT] 00000037 EJBContainerI I   WSVR0207I: Preparing to start EJB jar: accessEJB.jar[10/5/08 13:06:21:814 EDT] 00000037 EJBContainerI I   WSVR0037I: Starting EJB jar: accessEJB.jar[10/5/08 13:06:22:056 EDT] 00000037 LTPAServerObj E   SECJ0369E: Authentication failed when using LTPA. The exception is WMM-UR: The password check for user security name "uid=wpsadmin,cn=users,dc=ibm,dc=com" failed. Root cause is: "javax.naming.AuthenticationException: [LDAP: error code 49 - Invalid Credentials]"..[10/5/08 13:06:22:061 EDT] 00000037 MethodDelegat A   SECJ0055E: Authentication failed for uid=wpsadmin,cn=users,dc=ibm,dc=com. The user id or password may have been entered incorrectly or misspelled.  The user id may not exist, the account could have expired or disabled.  The password may have expired.[10/5/08 13:06:22:124 EDT] 00000037 LTPAServerObj E   SECJ0369E: Authentication failed when using LTPA. The exception is WMM-UR: The password check for user security name "uid=wpsadmin,cn=users,dc=ibm,dc=com" failed. Root cause is: "javax.naming.AuthenticationException: [LDAP: error code 49 - Invalid Credentials]"..
  [10/5/08 13:06:22:136 EDT] 00000037 MethodDelegat A   SECJ0055E: Authentication failed for uid=wpsadmin,cn=users,dc=ibm,dc=com. The user id or password may have been entered incorrectly or misspelled.  The user id may not exist, the account could have expired or disabled.  The password may have expired.
  

  
  Problem is the wpsadmin users password is stored in ibm-applicaiton-bnd.xmi file in XOR encoded format and this password does not get changed to new password. Follow Instruction in this tech note to fix this problem