Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!think.com!paperboy!meissner From: meissner@osf.org (Michael Meissner) Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions Subject: Re: long userids Message-ID: Date: 15 Jan 91 21:24:08 GMT References: <70DsV1w163w@wvus.wciu.edu> Sender: news@OSF.ORG Organization: Open Software Foundation Lines: 19 In-reply-to: pete@wvus.wciu.edu's message of 14 Jan 91 23:11:41 GMT In article <70DsV1w163w@wvus.wciu.edu> 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. My username is 8 characters, and with that, I've noticed quirks over the years. Notably, some ls's use a tab after the username, which make ls -l columns unaligned. Another problem is that the .rhost mechanism on older BSD systems won't recognize 8 character names, but that can be crowbar'ed by using hosts.equiv and living with the looser security. -- Michael Meissner email: meissner@osf.org phone: 617-621-8861 Open Software Foundation, 11 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, MA, 02142 Considering the flames and intolerance, shouldn't USENET be spelled ABUSENET?