Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!sun-barr!apple!agate!riacs!pioneer.arc.nasa.gov!samlb
From: samlb@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov (Sam Bassett RCS)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin
Subject: Re: Single site-wide uid space
Message-ID: <1990Nov6.044738.20191@riacs.edu>
Date: 6 Nov 90 04:47:38 GMT
References: <STEVE.GNUS19@arezzo.siemens.com> <1990Nov4.004817.2401@riacs.edu> <1990Nov5.003602.25290@lokkur.dexter.mi.us>
Sender: news@riacs.edu (James A. Woods)
Reply-To: samlb@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov (Sam Bassett RCS)
Distribution: na
Organization: NASA Ames Research Center, Mtn Vw CA 94035
Lines: 27

In article <1990Nov5.003602.25290@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> scs@lokkur.dexter.mi.us (Steve Simmons) writes:
>I doubt that present hashing algorithm just happens to return numbers
>less than 32K, which is the max uid on far too many UNIX boxes.  

	The present plans are to generate 1-up UIDs, not use the hash
code generated, as I understand it -- that would be used internally by
the Pass House people to differentiate John Smiths.

>A
>better solution which still meets your criteria is uniqname.  It is
>a central repository that lets sites generate unique login ids and
>UID numbers.  It's particularly useful for collections of systems where
>both the administration and the authority is distributed.

	Hmm -- I will go have a look at that, but the standard pattern
here is to have the login name be the person's last name (with initials
to disambiguate Smiths, for instance.

>Or is your mid-management really so paranoid
>they won't *allow* SAs to co-operate?

	Not quite!		:-)

Sam'l Bassett, Sterling Software @ NASA Ames Research Center, 
Moffett Field CA 94035 Work: (415) 604-4792;  Home: (415) 969-2644
samlb@well.sf.ca.us                     samlb@ames.arc.nasa.gov 
<Disclaimer> := 'Sterling doesn't _have_ opinions -- much less NASA!'