#### PASSWORD

#### Synopsis

    HELP:   Password for en/de-crypting a FLAMFILE in AES or FLAMENC mode (default: FLAMENC).
    TYPE:   STRING
    SYNTAX: PASSWORD/PASSW='bin'

#### Description

Password used for en-/decryption. During compression the FLAMFILE is encrypted with the specified password and can only be decompressed with the same password.

FLAM uses the specified password during compression with mode ADC to encrypt the compressed data and during decompression to decrypt the encrypted compressed data. The passwords used at compression and decompression must be identical or else the decompression command is rejected with an appropriate error message.

With modes other than adc, aes, or flamenc this parameter causes an error. When used with mode adc, the flamenc method is used for encryption.

A password entered as a character string is equivalent to a hexadecimal sequence consisting of its character codes and vice versa.

Note that a given character string entered on an ASCII system is not equivalent to the same string entered on a system using EBCDIC code. Therefore, for data exchange among systems with different character codes the hexadecimal format must be used if the codes of the password characters are not available on the keyboard.

This parameter cannot be set by default. This parameter and `-kmexit` are mutually exclusive.

See also parameters CRYPTOMODE , CRYPTOKEY/cryptkey, PAXWORD, PAASCII or PAEBCDIC.

Regardless of the encryption algorithm, a key should consist of at least 6 - 8 characters and it should at least contain 1 character from the following sets:

- Lower case letters
- Upper case letters
- Numbers 0 - 9
- Punctuation characters

Syntax restrictions for FLAMv4 or older:

- z/OS
  - `PASSWORD=password`
  - `PASSW=password`
    Password used for en-/decryption (same as CRYPTOK, see also parameter CRYPTOKEY).
- UNIX
  - `-password=password`
- WINDOWS
  - `password=password`

Values

- z/OS
  - any input up to 64 characters (512 bit).
    - Note: Please take care of the different code tables or national character sets used on the different platforms. E.g. using the password C'FLAM ' both on Windows systems (ASCII) and on MVS (EBCDIC) leads to a password error. You have to pass X'464C414D20' (this is 'FLAM' in ASCII) on MVS instead. We recommend to use the hex input for a heterogeneous environment.
- UNIX
  - The value for password can be entered in two formats:
    - As a simple character string: In this format, the password is entered immediately following the equal sign as a string of up to 64 characters. Valid characters are all capital and small Latin letters, decimal digits, the minus sign (-) and underscore (_). Using any other characters may yield unpredictable results. Note that passwords are case sensitive.
      Example: `-password=Alligator`
    - As a sequence of hexadecimal digits: In this format the password may consist of an even number of up to 128 hexadecimal digits (0-9, a-f, A-F). In this context small and capital letters are interchangeable. The sequence is enclosed in single quotes (\') and preceded by the letter "X". Any such combination is permitted.
      Example: `-password=X\'416c6c696761746f72\'`
- WINDOWS
  - String with a length of 1 to 64 characters.
    - Note: On the command line not all characters are allowed, e.g. commas and subsequent blanks. If required a hex-encoded password can be entered with paxword, see also parameter PAXWORD.

Default

- No default value can be set for password.

Valid for:

- compression
- decompression