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From: nto0302@dsacg3.dsac.dla.mil (Bob Fisher)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Long /etc/group
Message-ID: <3016@dsacg3.dsac.dla.mil>
Date: 7 Mar 91 12:49:25 GMT
References: <26192@adm.brl.mil>
Organization: Defense Logistics Agency Systems Automation Center, Columbus
Lines: 28

From article <26192@adm.brl.mil>, by wolf@grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr (Christophe Wolfhugel):
> I have a long group in my /etc/group file, with over 512 caracters in the
> line. Editor ed does not support longer lines, but I can continue to
> extend the line with vi. 
> 
> So my question: is there any limit for the system in the length of a
> /etc/group entry? Is yes, how long, and how could I solve this? Create
> a second entry for the same group? or... ?

This may be dependent on your flavor of UNIX.  On our BSD 4.3 system,
the system reads a single buffer of 1023 bytes.  No way to have a
continuation record.  Also, if we used a program to build a record longer
than 1023, the record was truncated and the next record trashed.

Our work-around for this was to create a another group with the same
group number but a different name.

		users:*:123:user1,user2,...usern
		users2:*:123:usern+1,....

Since privileges are based on GID, this seems to work well.  We have
had no problems with this and can have any number of users able to
be associated with a single GID.
-- 
Bob Fisher
US Defense Logistics Agency Systems Automation Center
DSAC-TOL, Box 1605, Columbus, OH 43216-5002     614-238-9071 (AV 850-9071)
bfisher@dsac.dla.mil		osu-cis!dsacg1!bfisher