Upgrade a console password verifier after supported authentication

A stronger setting is not a completed account migration

A fictional AI console changes its desired password-verifier profile from P1 to P2. The operator wants to report that all accounts are upgraded. But account U-A still has a credential record associated with P1, while U-B has not returned to the console. The configuration describes future policy; it does not record what happened to either account.

This original worksheet selects ordinary locally managed passwords and a supported direct-password work-factor upgrade within one independently approved hashing family. P1 and P2 are symbolic reviewed profiles, not algorithms, numeric settings or generated credentials. It excludes algorithm conversion, pepper rotation, compromised-account recovery and federation. Every case is PROPOSED_UNRUN.

Keep the documented migration facts small

The OWASP Password Storage Cheat Sheet distinguishes one-way password hashing from reversible encryption. It discusses unique salts, commonly managed by libraries, and recording algorithm/work-factor information with a verifier. Higher work factors also increase login-verification cost, so appropriate settings depend on the application’s resources.

OWASP describes rehashing when the user next authenticates, notes that absent users may remain unupgraded, and discusses requiring reset instead of retaining older hashes. Its separate legacy-migration section also describes layered hashing with limitations. This worksheet excludes that separate strategy; it does not claim that processing an old hash is universally impossible.

The actual body read is unversioned and supplied no revision or update date. No installed implementation was inspected. The operational policy below is original application design, not an OWASP transaction or concurrency recipe.

Give each account an evidence row

Use an internal record reference C-A for U-A’s credential revision 7. Its recorded profile is P1; desired policy revision D-2 selects P2. C-A is a worksheet label, not a password, hash, salt or serialized verifier. The protected credential store and supported library retain responsibility for actual credential material.

Keep policy adoption, eligibility and completed replacement as separate statuses. A deployment identifier cannot fill the commitment column. Neither a successful authentication record for U-B nor a count of application restarts establishes anything about C-A.

Allow a useful upgrade without inventing the adapter

The conditional positive begins with trusted U-A/C-A association, an approved maintained implementation that supports both profiles, and actual supported verification against C-A. It additionally requires current D-2 policy, an independently bounded resource plan and evidence that C-A is still the credential revision eligible for replacement. Unknown prerequisites block the positive.

Only that supported, already verified password input is eligible for the selected P2 operation. Do not substitute C-A’s stored verifier as though it were the same input. That is an application restriction of this direct-password profile, not a claim about every possible legacy conversion.

Before reporting completion, require a supported replacement that remains associated with U-A and the expected credential revision. If a concurrent recovery operation has already installed another credential, this attempt must not overwrite it with a verifier derived from an earlier password. The storage adapter must establish the required coordination; this guide specifies no database statement, lock or compare-and-replace implementation.

A prepared replacement, returned computation or queued persistence request is insufficient evidence of a committed credential change. An unknown persistence outcome remains unknown. Reconcile through the actual adapter before deciding whether replacement occurred; do not blindly replay a stale upgrade.

Review eight independent cards

The cards are independent teaching cases, not observed login outcomes or a test suite. In particular, the inactive row neither performs a reset nor authorizes an operator to delete credentials.

Report migration coverage without collecting passwords

For a future implementation review, distinguish accounts still recorded at P1, accounts with supported P2 commitment, accounts following a separately approved recovery process, and unknown outcomes. Define the population and observation time. A percentage that silently drops inactive or unresolved accounts hides precisely the migration question this ledger is meant to answer.

Keep ordinary evidence to permitted account references, profile revisions, decision categories and commitment references. Do not paste passwords or reusable credential records into logs, model prompts, support tickets or this worksheet. Evidence custody and retention require their own access policy.

Raising a credential cost is not password reset, session invalidation, proof of an uncompromised account or permission to release an AI export. Preserve the separate recovery contract and exact current business-action checks.

No password, verifier, salt, hashing operation, login, account change, resource measurement, storage adapter, API/model call or runtime fixture was constructed or executed. Boundary is prelaunch and does not provide a shipped password manager or migration service. Its synthetic policy, export and approval-status checks establish different behavior.