View passwords and password history
Privilege Secure stores the current password and a history of previous passwords for each managed account. You can copy or view the current password, and you can open the history to see earlier ones.
Passwords stay hidden until you reveal them. Reveal a password only when you need it.
Prerequisites
You're an Administrator, or you hold a custom role with the [C] View Password permission. See Create a custom role.
View the current password
On the Credentials page, each managed account shows two icons beside its name:
- Copy Password to Clipboard: Copies the current password.
- View Password: Opens the View Password dialog.
The same icons appear in credential groups and policy overrides.
To view the current password:
- In the left navigation, select Credentials.
- Find the managed account and select the View Password icon.
- Reveal the password with the eye icon, or copy it with Copy to Clipboard.
The dialog closes automatically after a 20-second countdown. The countdown restarts when you reveal the password. Select Cancel to close it sooner.
For example, view the password of <local-admin> to sign in to <server-name> during an outage.
View password history
- In the left navigation, select Credentials.
- Select the checkbox for a managed account.
- Select View History.
The Password History dialog opens.
The dialog has these controls:
| Control | Description |
|---|---|
| Show Password(s) | Reveals the password of the selected row. It is unavailable until you select a row. |
| Hide Password(s) | Hides the password of the selected row again. It is unavailable until you select a row whose password is shown. |
| Refresh | Reloads the list. |
You can select one row at a time, so Show Password(s) reveals one password at a time.
The table has these columns:
| Column | Description |
|---|---|
| Creation Date | When the password was created. |
| Password (click to view) | The password, shown as <hidden> until you reveal it with Show Password(s). Select a revealed password to highlight its text. |
You can resize and sort the columns. Until you sort, the newest entry is first.
For example, an account whose password rotated three times shows one row for each stored password, each with its own creation date.
History limits
By default, Privilege Secure keeps up to 7 passwords for each account and keeps each one for 30 days. To change these limits, edit Historical Password Limit (1 to 50) and Days Of Password Retention (1 to 365) in System Settings. See System settings reference.
The two limits work independently. When Privilege Secure stores a new password for an account that is at the count limit, it deletes the oldest entry. A separate cleanup deletes every entry that is older than the retention period.