Re: sysinst username length limit

[ignatios%cs.uni-bonn.de@localhost]

Hi,

On Wed, Apr 03, 2024 at 11:12:25AM +0200, Martin Husemann wrote:

> IIRC you could always use longer names if they were unique within the first
> 8 chars.

After failing to find hints in the YP code, other than variable
lengthes for both key and data, I decided to experiment:

Fortunately, I didn't fully remove the NIS configuration on the 
old server of my old workgroup when I switched NIS off, and switched
the server back on a while ago when I hunted for old hardware inventory
records.

theory.cs.uni-bonn.de# ypcat passwd | grep charl
charlotte:qXMQOBvuvVRgY:666:100::/home/theory/charlotte:/bin/tcsh
charlottf:DNe9Lzz0u8dMo:667:100::/home/theory/charlottf:/bin/tcsh

I also tested that the logins resulted in different accounts and
numerical uids.

What *is* silently truncated to first 8 chars is the password when
using the "DES" derived password hash,

	(Experimentally verified with the above setup)

which is the only one supported by old YP code, in case you still
have e.g. an sunos4 client in your network.

	-is