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Date:      Wed, 10 Mar 1999 16:54:05 -0500 (EST)
From:      "Crist J. Clark" <cjc@cc942873-a.ewndsr1.nj.home.com>
To:        ghelmer@scl.ameslab.gov (Guy Helmer)
Cc:        root@nussi.ml.org, FreeBSD-Questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Bug ?
Message-ID:  <199903102154.QAA02246@cc942873-a.ewndsr1.nj.home.com>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SGI.4.05.9903101505470.15928-100000@demios.scl.ameslab.gov> from Guy Helmer at "Mar 10, 99 03:10:57 pm"

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Guy Helmer wrote,
> On Wed, 10 Mar 1999, nussi wrote:
> 
> > Dear FreeBSD Team !!!
> > 
> > i have some silly Questions... (sorry for mistakes, iam from Vienna)
> > 
> > 1. why i cant remove a user with big letters ? 
> >    e.g. i cant delete "Nussi" because its not alphanummeric
> >         but i can delete "nussi" ...
> >    what can i do to remove a user without "rmuser" ?
> >    i really need this and when its not possible to remove names
> >    with big letters i must change back to Linux :(
> 
> Hmm, that's a simple change (I wonder why this hasn't come up before?).

Because, as pointed out in 'man adduser,'

RESTRICTIONS
     username
             Login name. May contain only  lowercase characters or digits.
                                           ^^^^^^^^^
             Maximum length is 8 characters (see setlogin(2) BUGS section).
             The reasons for this limit are "Historical".  Given that people
             have traditionally wanted to break this limit for aesthetic rea-
             sons, it's never been of great importance to break such a basic
             fundamental parameter in UNIX.  You can change UT_NAMESIZE in
             /usr/include/utmp.h and recompile the world; people have done
             this and it works, but you will have problems with any precom-
             piled programs, or source that assumes the 8-character name limit
             and NIS. The NIS protocol mandates an 8-character username.  If
             you need a longer login name for e-mail addresses, you can define
             an alias in /etc/aliases.

You should not have uppercase characters in a username in the first
place. I personally like the sarcasm in there.
-- 
Crist J. Clark                           cjclark@home.com


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