Length of User names

[der Mouse]

In article <27070 at adm.brl.mil>, TANNERC at 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 at larry.mcrcim.mcgill.edu