Bill Sommerfeld wrote: > On Sun, 2007-09-09 at 18:00 -0700, Erik Nordmark wrote: >>> Well, it was supposed to wipe my hard drive and install Solaris before >>> trying to look for the new user account that it was supposed to create >>> for me. rdelaplante does not exist in my current Solaris 10 install. >>> The new installer asked me to choose a user account to create and I >>> chose rdelaplante. >> According to passwd(4) the user name is limited to 8 characters. > > in most cases usernames longer than 8 characters work despite the text > in passwd(4). we shouldn't be introducing new instances of this limit. >
Undoubtedly the long user name is what caused the problem, as the installer is relying on code that validates against the 8 character limit. But it's not particularly inconsistent: - The Gnome Users & Groups tool will likewise refuse to accept longer names in creating an account - useradd of a 9 character name complains: UX: useradd: daveminer name too long. but goes ahead and creates it. - I didn't have a working instance of SMC to check its Users tool I suspect a warning would be better than a failure, anyway, but I don't think we should make it entirely silent on the subject so long as the passwd(4) text persists. Dave
