Extending login names beyond 8 chars (v7)

[Dave Sherman]

We're setting up our system at the Law Society (Perkin-Elmer
3220, running Edition VII Workbench which is essentially v7)
with over 1,000 accounts for students to use for computer-assisted
instruction. I would like to get away from the limitation of
8-character login names. (I know this has been done in other
versions of UNIX.)

The system as distributed won't even permit a login where
the /etc/passwd entry is longer than 8 chars. I've fixed
that (in login.c), but still only the first 8 chars are
distinguished, since utmp.ut_name has that size limitation.

If I were to extend the ut_name field to, say, 14 characters
(adequate for my needs, and avoiding problems with potentially
conflicting file or directory names), what problems would I run
into? Offhand, I realize I'd have to change everything that looks
into /etc/utmp and /usr/adm/wtmp - who, lastlog and similar
utilities. I'd also change "ls -l" to have a larger field for
the user name. Would I run into serious problems with any of
this? How have other versions of UNIX dealt with it?

Thanks.

Dave Sherman
The Law Society of Upper Canada
(416) 947-3466
utzoo!lsuc!dave
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