wolf@grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr (Christophe Wolfhugel) (03/05/91)
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... ? -- Christophe Wolfhugel (on irc: Zolf) | Email: wolf@grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr INSA Lyon - Departement Informatique | IRC'admin at node grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr 69621 Villeurbanne Cedex, France | Fax: (+33) 72 44 08 00
frechett@spot.Colorado.EDU (-=Runaway Daemon=-) (03/06/91)
In article <26192@adm.brl.mil> wolf@grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr (Christophe Wolfhugel) writes: |>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... ? I don't know if anything relating to the use of the /etc/group file is going to object but you will find that since vi is a "visual" editor it gets really upset if you try to edit a line that won't fit on the screen. I have done it before and it is quite a mess. It resulted in numerous core dumpings and such. The way to get around this at that point is to make a little perl script because as we all know by now, perl can do anything. ;) Actually, it is just that perl care how long a single line is and in many cases it is benficail to turn a whole file into one line so that perl can do something special to it. |> |>-- |>Christophe Wolfhugel (on irc: Zolf) | Email: wolf@grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr |>INSA Lyon - Departement Informatique | IRC'admin at node grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr |>69621 Villeurbanne Cedex, France | Fax: (+33) 72 44 08 00 ian -- Ian Frechette *UNIXOPS* University of Colorado at Boulder
tchrist@convex.COM (Tom Christiansen) (03/07/91)
From the keyboard of frechett@spot.Colorado.EDU (-=Runaway Daemon=-):
:In article <26192@adm.brl.mil> wolf@grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr (Christophe Wolfhugel) writes:
:|>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... ?
:I don't know if anything relating to the use of the /etc/group file is going to
:object but you will find that since vi is a "visual" editor it gets really
:upset if you try to edit a line that won't fit on the screen. I have done it
:before and it is quite a mess. It resulted in numerous core dumpings and such.
Well, I never got coredumps, but I did have some problems. This is
one of those constants I added a zero (order of magnitude) to in
my copy of vi. I can now handle 16k lines. Again, a stupid
way to do things, but easier than making it infinit.
You've a bigger problem with long groups though:
YP's brain-dead 1k dbm-enforced data limit.
:The way to get around this at that point is to make a little perl script
:because as we all know by now, perl can do anything. ;) Actually, it is just
:that perl care how long a single line is and in many cases it is benficail to
:turn a whole file into one line so that perl can do something special to it.
You mean perl DOESN'T care. But yes, I've done that to.
--tom
--
I get so tired of utilities with arbitrary, undocumented,
compiled-in limits. Don't you?
Tom Christiansen tchrist@convex.com convex!tchristjik@athena.mit.edu (Jonathan I. Kamens) (03/07/91)
In article <26192@adm.brl.mil>, wolf@grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr (Christophe Wolfhugel) writes: |> 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... ? Well, the code I'm looking at right now uses a buffer of length BUFSIZ to hold each line in the /etc/group file. So yes, there is a limit on most systems, and it's probably going to be 512 or 1024 characters. The 4.3reno code also appears to have a limit -- 1024 characters. It explicily discards anything after that many characters on a line (the older routines simply assume that everything is less than the maximum line length, so they get very confused when a line is too long). I don't know of any way to solve this, other than not having groups with that many people in them :-). -- Jonathan Kamens USnail: MIT Project Athena 11 Ashford Terrace jik@Athena.MIT.EDU Allston, MA 02134 Office: 617-253-8085 Home: 617-782-0710
nto0302@dsacg3.dsac.dla.mil (Bob Fisher) (03/07/91)
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