Enhanced Password Security

The feature Enhanced Password Security, introduced in Cisco IOS Software Release 12.2(8)T, allows an administrator to configure MD5 hashing of passwords for the username command. Prior to this feature, there were two types of passwords: Type 0, which is a cleartext password, and Type 7, which uses the algorithm from the Vigenère cipher. The Enhanced Password Security feature cannot be used with protocols that require the cleartext password to be retrievable, such as CHAP.

In order to encrypt a user password with MD5 hashing, issue the username secret global configuration command.

 ! 
username  secret 
 !