Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!longway!std-unix
From: seanf@sco.COM (Sean Fagan)
Newsgroups: comp.std.unix
Subject: Re: UIDs and GIDs
Message-ID: <751@longway.TIC.COM>
Date: 29 Jun 90 18:15:05 GMT
References: <743@longway.TIC.COM>
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Approved: jsq@longway.tic.com (Moderator, John S. Quarterman)

From: seanf@sco.COM (Sean Fagan)

In article <743@longway.TIC.COM> mbrown@osf.org (Mark Brown) writes:
>In 1003.1, "User ID" is defined as a positive integer (so is GID)...
>Also, uid_t is defined as an arithmetic type (same for gid_t).
>How does one handle (or can one handle) certain networking conventions that
>use a "dummy" user ("nobody") and require a user id of -2 ?
>Do these conflict as they seem, or am I missing something (always possible..)

Certain networking conventions are broken.

uid_t and gid_t have usually (always?) been considered unsigned shorts.
Most architectures let them get away with it, barely.  It is not a good
idea, though.

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Sean Eric Fagan  | "Just think, IBM and DEC in the same room, 
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Volume-Number: Volume 20, Number 64