Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!zaphod!usc!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!paperboy!hsdndev!husc6!encore!houligan!epeterso From: epeterso@houligan.encore.com (Eric Peterson) Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions Subject: Re: long userids Message-ID: Date: 15 Jan 91 15:59:58 GMT References: <70DsV1w163w@wvus.wciu.edu> Sender: news@Encore.COM Reply-To: epeterson@encore.com (Eric Peterson) Organization: Encore Computer Corporation, Diagnostic Development Lines: 48 Nntp-Posting-Host: houligan.encore.com News-Software: NN 6.4.12 pete@wvus.wciu.edu (Pete Gregory) writes: | Are there any deadly implications to using long (>8 chars) userid names | in /etc/passwd? Management wants to inflict an archaic userid convention | on me (okay with me, as long as UNIX likes it) that will sometimes result in | user names longer than 8 (sometimes 14) characters long. I ran into this problem just yesterday on a System V machine. I found that with a long user ID, I was unable to change my password with /bin/passwd. I was unable to use FTP, since somewhere, either in the client or the server, my ID was being truncated to 8 characters. | * I've conducted a test with three long user names (1st 12 chars identical), | and the system seems to be able to differentiate them okay (including | who owns files). That's because ownership is determined by user ID number, not the login name. | * everyone will have to use 'n' option with 'ls', so that duplicate ownership | will not be suspected. Good luck enforcing this, other than by hacking ls and possibly breaking any scripts or other software that depends upon the lack of the -n option. Why does your management want to support such long ID names, especially ones of varying length? Perhaps it's something similar to what we do here at Encore ... Someone decided that it would be nice to be able to send mail to anyone in the company by merely sending mail to an address consisting of their first initial followed by their complete last name. To do this, the file /usr/lib/aliases maps everyone's first initial and full last name into a real user ID at a real machine location. Some people have IDs that fit this pattern, truncated to 8 characters. Others have only their first name or their initials. But the aliases file takes care of all of these special cases. This may not be what your superiors want necessarily. But there should be some way to accomodate their needs without resorting to long user IDs. Eric -- Eric Peterson <> epeterson@encore.com <> uunet!encore!epeterson Encore Computer Corp. * Ft. Lauderdale, Florida * (305) 587-2900 x 5208 Why did Constantinople get the works? Gung'f abobql'f ohfvarff ohg gur Ghexf.