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As IT Support, my team is taking so much time reseting passwords. So, we thought it would be interesting to enable some sort of Password Challenge in Active Directory so users could reset their own passwords, after correctly answering some questions.

Despite we alert users by mail when their passwords are going to expire, they just delete the mail and go on so we think it should be a great idea.

I've seen some commercial products but I'm not sure if there is something built-in or GPL to enable this kind of feature.

Could someone shed some light about it?

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  • Out of curiosity, what is the size of your organisation? Another option is to use delegated control and let line managers reset passwords for their team.
    – Matt
    Apr 12, 2012 at 22:44
  • It's an international company, pretty big with so many customers. Maybe Accenture sounds familiar to you. Apr 13, 2012 at 4:58

1 Answer 1

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There is nothing built-in to Active Directory to allow self-serve password resets. The only Open Source utility in this vein that I am aware of is pwm.

Of course, as I'm sure you already know, this isn't a technology problem, this is a personnel problem. What you need is management support behind an initiative to encourage employees to take responsibility for their own technology.

At once place I'm aware of, password resets as a result of lockout caused a $5 charge. In cash. In a tip jar. On the Sr. SysAdmin's desk. That kind of management is awesome. That is not the norm, but nevertheless, you can implement whatever technology you want, but after you implement a self serve portal, people will simply ignore the URL for the page and instead call you on your desk phone whining "You used to do this for me before!"

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  • We're used to change procedures from time to time so, despite they refuse the change in the begining, they have to live with it. Thanks for your answer! Apr 13, 2012 at 6:10
  • @AntonioLaguna Excellent! Sounds like you have a head start over most of us. =)
    – Wesley
    Apr 13, 2012 at 15:26

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