Looks like the answer is NO ...
Here is the official response from Compaq:
"It looks like the 8 character user name still applies in 5.0. I found this
in the System Administration Guide page 7-11. Sorry.. You can look at this
online at
http://www.unix.digital.com "
Here are the responses from y'all (THANKS ! ! !):
Andreas Theodorou
I have the same question !!!
We are running Tru64 4.0e
Ian Mortimer
Last time I tried this (a few versions back) you could do it in
the sense that you could create an account with a login name
longer than 8 characters (but not with useradd or dxaccounts).
You could then login with the long name at the console but telnet
logins didn't work. You also get problems with `ls -l'. The user
name is truncated to 9 characters and runs into the group field.
There might be other problems as well.
Spider.Boardman
I'm pretty sure it was summarized, actually, but some people's
summaries don't look like that's what they are, since they can't
or won't spell SUMMARY in their subject line.
Anyway, prior to v5.0 the answer is "no". From v5.0 through (at
least) v5.1, the answer is "sort of". It's supposed to become
"yes" in a post-5.1 release. There's a maximum username limit in
one of the sysconfig tables, I *think* it's in "proc", that you
can modify. (It requires a reboot to take effect.) I'm running
v4.0F right now, so I can't easily find the name of the actual
entry for you. It's also true that, more or less by accident,
V5.0 defaults to allowing 11 characters rather than just 8.
Dr. Tom Blinn
Not easily. There are things all over the system that have been built
with the knowledge that the string can NEVER be more than 8 characters
(plus a terminating null byte, 9 characters allocated total). Just as
one example, the "utmp" file does not have enough room for a string any
longer than 32 characters (although it does have that much space).
In V5.0 and later, the system is being built to be able to support up
to a 63 character user name (with a terminating null byte, 64 total).
But no statement of support for that limit has been issued yet, as far
as I know, it may still be a work in progress (EVERYTHING that will be
used in such an environment has to be built to be ready to accept the
longer strings, and that basically breaks binary compatibility for some
applications). I believe the choice of 63 characters was based on the
desire to be able to support "single sign-on" compatibility with the
products of Microsoft Corporation, which have that limit, if I remember
correctly.
So, some time in the future, but never on V4.0x.
John P Speno
AFAIK, there is no way to do this.
You can have long email addresses (as long as they map to login names <=
8chars).
Octave Orgeron
As far as I know, you can not change the username
limit. You can change the password size limit though.
I don't know why this is so, but it's fairly common on Unix's.
Nikola Milutinovic
AFAIK, no.
Kjell Andresen
Why do you want to do so?
If you are runne nis you will be bothered with other unices as well.
Within the english alphabet you have a lot of combinations covered
with eight characters:
>expr 26 \* 26 \* 26 \* 26 \* 26 \* 26 \* 26 \* 26
208827064576
208.827.064.576 that is. 208,8 billion.
This is a lot more than the number of users on your system I guess.
If I am able to find the 8-characters definition of user logins I'll let you
know!
Kjell Andresen
There is a billion programs and headerfiles which assumes 8 chars is max
In the last version of Solaris you may have longer user names
A lot of utilities also assumes 8 chars user names.
Samuel Nicolary
Not that I know of. I went down that path before and can up empty handed.
Thanks again to all who responded.
- Joan Riggs
-----Original Message-----
From: Riggs, Joan [mailto:Joan.Riggs_at_kls.usaka.smdc.army.mil]
Sent: Thursday, August 03, 2000 1:55 PM
To: tru64-unix-managers_at_ornl.gov
Subject: SUMMARY: 8-character userid limit?
Is there a way to override the 8-character userid limit? I checked the
archives
and found the question asked a couple times but no summarized answers ...
We are running Tru64 4.0f.
thanks in advance,
Joan Riggs
Raytheon RSE / KLS
Information Technology
805.355.9877 [ +12 GMT ]
joan.riggs_at_kls.usaka.smdc.army.mil
Received on Fri Aug 04 2000 - 03:39:36 NZST