dave@utcsrgv.UUCP (Dave Sherman) (10/29/84)
We're setting up our system at the Law Society (Perkin-Elmer 3220, running Edition VII Workbench which is essentially v7) with over 1,000 accounts for students to use for computer-assisted instruction. I would like to get away from the limitation of 8-character login names. (I know this has been done in other versions of UNIX.) The system as distributed won't even permit a login where the /etc/passwd entry is longer than 8 chars. I've fixed that (in login.c), but still only the first 8 chars are distinguished, since utmp.ut_name has that size limitation. If I were to extend the ut_name field to, say, 14 characters (adequate for my needs, and avoiding problems with potentially conflicting file or directory names), what problems would I run into? Offhand, I realize I'd have to change everything that looks into /etc/utmp and /usr/adm/wtmp - who, lastlog and similar utilities. I'd also change "ls -l" to have a larger field for the user name. Would I run into serious problems with any of this? How have other versions of UNIX dealt with it? Thanks. Dave Sherman The Law Society of Upper Canada (416) 947-3466 utzoo!lsuc!dave -- { allegra cornell decvax ihnp4 linus utzoo }!utcsrgv!dave