From owner-freebsd-questions Tue Aug 25 08:33:22 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id IAA13787 for freebsd-questions-outgoing; Tue, 25 Aug 1998 08:33:22 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from tyree.iii.co.uk (tyree.iii.co.uk [195.89.149.230]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id IAA13775 for ; Tue, 25 Aug 1998 08:33:14 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from nik@iii.co.uk) From: nik@iii.co.uk Received: from carrig.strand.iii.co.uk (carrig.strand.iii.co.uk [192.168.7.25]) by tyree.iii.co.uk (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id QAA03811; Tue, 25 Aug 1998 16:32:18 +0100 (BST) Received: (from nik@localhost) by carrig.strand.iii.co.uk (8.8.8/8.8.7) id QAA07545; Tue, 25 Aug 1998 16:31:20 +0100 (BST) Message-ID: <19980825163120.A7512@iii.co.uk> Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1998 16:31:20 +0100 To: David Wolfskill Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Group ownership (WHY : or .) References: <35E2373E.F4757D70@aei.ca> <199808251442.HAA22599@pau-amma.whistle.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.91.1i In-Reply-To: <199808251442.HAA22599@pau-amma.whistle.com>; from David Wolfskill on Tue, Aug 25, 1998 at 07:42:33AM -0700 Organization: interactive investor Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Tue, Aug 25, 1998 at 07:42:33AM -0700, David Wolfskill wrote: > Before responding, I had checked the man page for chown, which specifies > the "newuser:newgroup" syntax. Although the "newuser.newgroup" syntax > was one I had used previously (on SunOS systems), I didn't try it, since > the man page specified otherwise. Both of them work. > >Why there is both version? > > I suspect that's a question with an answer based in history.... You can have a '.' in your username, you can't have a ':'. From passwd(5); The login name must never begin with a hyphen (``-''); also, it is strongly suggested that neither upper-case characters or dots (``.'') be part of the name, as this tends to confuse mailers. No field may contain a colon (``:'') as this has been used historically to separate the fields in the user database. I can remember this biting me when I moved from SunOS to Solaris. N -- --+==[ Nik Clayton becomes Just Another Perl Contractor in 18 days. ]==+-- She's still dead. Deal with it. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message