I think it's time to move beyond those traditional limits. At some point we got over the 14 char file name limits, and the world is a better place for it. I much prefer to spend a few more characters for clarity. Eg 'webalizer' -- I know exactly what that's about. It's for Webalizer. 'wbalizer', or 'webalize' or 'wlzpf82' or whatever you would use to make it fit in 8 characters is likely not going to be so obvious. As long as we don't start putting silly characters like spaces and umlauts in there :-) Joe. On 3/2/06, Dax Kelson <dax@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > I was wondering if Fedora had any guidelines for valid usernames. > Especially usernames that are part of base and extra packages? > > Since, well forever, I've understood the UNIX and Linux username best > practices to be: > > (a) all lowercase > (b) alphanumeric with exception that first char must not be a number > (c) 8 char max length > > The origin of (a) I believe comes from the fact that historically there > was a one-to-one mapping between email addresses and usernames and since > email addresses are not case sensitive, usernames that only differ by > case cause email ambiguities. > > I'm not sure the origin of (b). > > The origin of (c) comes from the fact that's the way it has always been > and older tools and file formats make only have room for 8 characters > such as old tar or cpio. Additionally once a username exceeds 8 > characters some tools such as /bin/ps and /bin/ls start behaving > differently. This can cause a cascade problem when sys admins write > elaborate scripts or even one-off temporary scripts that because > non-temporary and parse the output of /bin/ps or /bin/ls. > > For example, a script that is expecting the first column of /bin/ps > output to be a username, might go bonkers if it encounters: > > avahi 2250 0.0 0.0 2744 436 ? Ss Mar01 0:00 avahi-daemon: chroot helper process > root 2259 0.0 0.0 3084 1172 ? Ss Mar01 0:00 cups-config-daemon > 68 2269 0.0 0.1 5072 3476 ? Ss Mar01 0:02 hald > root 2270 0.0 0.0 3084 1140 ? S Mar01 0:00 hald-runner > 68 2276 0.0 0.0 2192 896 ? S Mar01 0:00 /usr/libexec/hald-addon-acpi > 68 2285 0.0 0.0 2196 900 ? S Mar01 0:00 /usr/libexec/hald-addon-keyboard > root 2292 0.0 0.0 2152 840 ? S Mar01 0:00 /usr/libexec/hald-addon-storage > root 2305 0.0 0.0 1548 448 tty2 Ss+ Mar01 0:00 /sbin/mingetty tty2 > > IMHO, Fedora should respect the traditional best practices and > conventions (not speaking solely about usernames) and not violate them > without good reason. It seems there is maybe a carefree indifference or > possibly ignorant attitude about the "old ways". Breaking long standing > conventions in itself violates the principal of least surprise -- > something sys admins do not care for. > > In regards to the username violations on my FC4 box I see three > usernames exceeding the 8 characters in length and on my rawhide box I > see five. It is getting worse. > > For the sake of conversation here is list from a fresh rawhide install > with a moderate amount of packages installed. > > lp = 2 > adm = 3 > bin = 3 > ftp = 3 > gdm = 3 > ntp = 3 > rpc = 3 > rpm = 3 > xfs = 3 > dbus = 4 > halt = 4 > mail = 4 > news = 4 > nscd = 4 > pcap = 4 > root = 4 > sshd = 4 > sync = 4 > uucp = 4 > vcsa = 4 > avahi = 5 > games = 5 > named = 5 > smmsp = 5 > squid = 5 > apache = 6 > daemon = 6 > gopher = 6 > nobody = 6 > netdump = 7 > rpcuser = 7 > torrent = 7 > mailnull = 8 > operator = 8 > shutdown = 8 > distcache = 9 > haldaemon = 9 > nfsnobody = 9 > webalizer = 9 > beagleindex = 11 > > It isn't a universal trend, but it seems that the newer the program the > longer the username. > > Any comments from the powers that be on this topic? Personally I'd love > to see these 9+ usernames "fixed". > > Dax (getting a grey goatee) Kelson > > > -- > fedora-devel-list mailing list > fedora-devel-list@xxxxxxxxxx > https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list > -- fedora-devel-list mailing list fedora-devel-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
