On Tue, Oct 29, 2002 at 12:19:34PM -0500, Randy Donohoe wrote: > In trying to set up sendmail on Libranet 2.7 we're having problems with > periods in usernames. Libranet won't let you use periods in usernames, > so we're going in to the password files and changing them manually. Are > we creating security problems? Why won't some programs let you use > puncuation marks?
Because periods and other punctuation marks are typically used in regular expressions, so processing usernames with, say, ! in it becomes quite interesting and requires special handling. For example: $ export UNAME="kurt!wall" bash: !wall": event not found Here, Bash treats "!" like as it would when doing command history searches. The grep command (actually, anything that uses regular expressions) treats "." as a placholder for any single character, which can create aggravating problems in text utilities. Kurt -- Kansas state law requires pedestrians crossing the highways at night to wear tail lights. _______________________________________________ Linux-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe/Suspend/Etc -> http://www.linux-sxs.org/mailman/listinfo/linux-users
