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Date:      Tue, 28 Jan 2003 14:00:34 -0500
From:      Garance A Drosehn <gad@FreeBSD.org>
To:        Fernando Schapachnik <fernando@mecon.gov.ar>
Cc:        freebsd-bugs@FreeBSD.org
Subject:   Re: bin/46890: [PATCH] pw doesn't accept characters like $ although it should according to passwd(5)
Message-ID:  <p05200f23ba5c788b292d@[128.113.24.47]>
In-Reply-To: <20030128132711.GD296@bal740r0.mecon.gov.ar>
References:  <200301280126.h0S1QhqH098326@freefall.freebsd.org> <20030128132711.GD296@bal740r0.mecon.gov.ar>

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At 10:27 AM -0300 1/28/03, Fernando Schapachnik wrote:
>Ok, thanks for the commit! Regarding your comment in
>bin/28773 let me point out that a MFC to stable would
>be very usefull. Some places (like us) prefer to user
>pw instead of useradd, for its flexibility
>(pw user add -h, for instance).

Okay.  I will also look into committing the change to stable.

>I'll try to update the passwd(5) man page describing the
>allowed chars and submit it as a PR. Is that right?

I am not sure what the best change would be.  The passwd(5)
man page describes what "the system" will allow, and that can
and will be less restrictive than what the 'pw' command would
allow for creating a new userid.  The 'NOTES' section of the
pw(1) man page talks about the restriction on 8-bit characters,
for instance.

We probably should have updates to both passwd(5) and pw(1).
For instance, passwd(5) might only say that "it is a bad idea
to include the '$' character in a userid", while pw(1) would
say "you can not use '$', except as the last character in
a userid or group name".

I must admit I am reluctant to think about the man-page changes,
as it would take me days or even weeks to decide what the best
wording would be!  But if you have an idea, you could write it
up as a separate PR and someone in the doc group could look at
that.

-- 
Garance Alistair Drosehn     =      gad@gilead.netel.rpi.edu
Senior Systems Programmer               or   gad@FreeBSD.org
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute;             Troy, NY;  USA

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