Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!ames!haven!adm!smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn)
Newsgroups: comp.bugs.4bsd
Subject: Re: cpio - segmentation violation
Keywords: cpio, negative UID
Message-ID: <10406@smoke.BRL.MIL>
Date: 16 Jun 89 20:57:49 GMT
References: <1120@servax0.essex.ac.uk>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 7

In article <1120@servax0.essex.ac.uk> peter@essex.ac.uk	 (Allott P) writes:
>The problem is that some users have files on their areas with a uid of -2.

That NFS-induced modification to the concept of UID has caused numerous
problems.  AT&T UIDs are unsigned (i.e. nonnegative) integers, and AT&T
UNIX software relies on this.  (So did some BSD software.)  The whole
issue of NFS ID mapping has been a real mess.