Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu!mouse
From: mouse@thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu (der Mouse)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Length of User names
Message-ID: <1991Jun1.194721.25383@thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu>
Date: 1 Jun 91 19:47:21 GMT
References: <27070@adm.brl.mil>
Organization: McGill Research Centre for Intelligent Machines
Lines: 27

In article <27070@adm.brl.mil>, TANNERC@cu18.crl.aecl.ca writes:

> I am investigating establishing a standard policy for deriving user
> names for UNIX systems at our site, and am a bit upset at the
> restriction that all UNIX systems (that I saw) have for the user name
> - 8 characters.

Yes, this is a pain.

> I am wondering if there is any move in the UNIX area to change the
> allow length of the users login name from 8 to say 12.

Not that I know of, not in general.

Fortunately, it's not hard to do.  I once asked someone at Waterloo,
which uses usernames >8 chars on their UNIX machines, how they did it,
and was informed that you just need to change a couple of include files
(<utmp.h> comes to mind) and recompile everything.

Oh, you don't have source?  Then you've got problems.  A good example
of why binary distributions are evil.

					der Mouse

			old: mcgill-vision!mouse
			new: mouse@larry.mcrcim.mcgill.edu