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Date:      Sat, 7 Dec 1996 14:07:57 +0100 (MET)
From:      J Wunsch <j@uriah.heep.sax.de>
To:        freebsd-current@FreeBSD.org (FreeBSD-current users)
Subject:   Re: cvs commit:  src/include utmp.h
Message-ID:  <199612071307.OAA18895@uriah.heep.sax.de>
In-Reply-To: <199612041130.DAA25553@freefall.freebsd.org> from "Jordan K. Hubbard" at "Dec 4, 96 03:30:18 am"

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As Jordan K. Hubbard wrote:

>   Modified:    include   utmp.h
>   Log:
>   Bump maximum username length to 16 characters.  This brings us into
>   line with BSD/OS and Linux's username limits, making transitioning from
>   either operating system a lot easier than it is now.  I'm currently
>   running with this change on my system, as are several others, and have
>   experienced no ill effects.

We should provide a small tool that allows to convert the wtmp file
into the new format.  This should IMHO be part of the 3.0 upgrade
procedure.  Note that old wtmp files are being gzipped by default, so
the tool should handle this case.

Breaking backward compatibility to ourselves is IMHO a Bad Thing.  I
volunteer to write that tool (i think it's not a big deal anyway), but
where should it go to?

Alternatively, we could teach last(1) to handle both cases, based on
some heuristics.  (Haven't tried, but i assume that's also possible.)

-- 
cheers, J"org

joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de -- http://www.sax.de/~joerg/ -- NIC: JW11-RIPE
Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-)



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