NCSAM/2011–Post 5–Make sure you can recover your passwords
Make sure you can recover your passwords – or that you can recover from a lost password.
Consider what happens if you get run over by a train – and you don’t die. It happens.
You lose your memory of every password you set in the last six months, and you aren’t in any condition anyway to be telling people what they were.
If you have enabled redundant accounts with appropriate access for recovery purposes, those left to deal with your loose ends will be more likely to thank you when you do come around, your servers will be working, your data will be current, and all will be fine.
If you have written down your passwords in a safe place (and told someone responsible where that is), those passwords can be used while you are temporarily absent.
A good friend of mine found this out first hand. I’d rather no one else did.