Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!hsdndev!cmcl2!adm!smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@smoke.brl.mil (Doug Gwyn)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Length of User names
Message-ID: <16322@smoke.brl.mil>
Date: 2 Jun 91 00:28:39 GMT
References: <27070@adm.brl.mil> <1991Jun1.194721.25383@thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu>
Organization: U.S. Army Ballistic Research Laboratory, APG, MD.
Lines: 13

In article <1991Jun1.194721.25383@thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu> mouse@thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu (der Mouse) writes:
>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.

For an example of why hacking the system interface is harmful, consider
those applications that attempt to get usernames and provide only 8+1
characters of storage for them, because that was a known feature of the
operating system implementation.  Longer user names will break such
programs, and no it is NOT practical to find them all and change them.