Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!bcstec!sleepy!anthis From: anthis@sleepy.UUCP (mike anthis) Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin Subject: Re: Single site-wide uid space Summary: can big UID's be bad? Message-ID: <151@sleepy.UUCP> Date: 20 Nov 90 21:37:45 GMT References: Distribution: na Organization: Boeing Computer Services, Seattle Lines: 35 In article , fitz@wang.com (Tom Fitzgerald) writes: > steve@arezzo.siemens.com (Steve Giovannetti) writes: > > Has anyone come up with schemes for maintaining a single site-wide uid > > space? I am in the process of developing one for our site. > > We sleazed out of this one. Everyone's UID here is a function of their > telephone extension. For most people, it's just the last 4 digits of the > extension, but there are also some tricks to make sure that there are no > collisions, that nobody's ID is in the range 0 to 200, and that there is > a reserved space for UUCP logins and other inorganic accounts. My (SunOS) man page for sa(8) says: BUGS sa's execution time increases linearly with the magnitude of the largest positive user ID in /etc/passwd. I am wondering how big the UID's have to get for this to become a problem? Or is this not a problem for some other reasons? I guess this boils down to the question: how big is a _practical_ limit on UID space; is it the same as the _legal_ limit? If someone expresses interest, I'll summarize e-mailed replies. Yours, mike -- ---------------------------------------------------- Mike Anthis uunet!bcstec!sleepy!anthis 90% of good taste is found in 10% of the population. ----------------------------------------------------