topic User name length in Operating System - Linux

User name length

Starrynight_1 — Fri, 01 Feb 2002 14:40:29 GMT

Hi

Does anyone know why 8 is the maximum number of charaters that a username can have?

SN

Re: User name length

Pal Szabo_1 — Fri, 01 Feb 2002 15:38:55 GMT

Hi!

I didn't found this limit.
My you use a graphical tool?

I made account with directly editing /etc/passwd and shadow file.It was 10 char length, and it is working.
Only the last command can't
display the full username.
But it is stored in the wtmp file in 32 byte length string.

Regards:
Paul

Re: User name length

Mark Fenton — Fri, 01 Feb 2002 22:14:51 GMT

Well, in the bad old days when storage was expensive... (you get the idea)

There's no reason why a user name couldn't be longer, except that that's not how it's defined in the headers of the programs that manipulate them, and for most purposes, eight characters is enough. (That's why finger was developed....)

I don't know that it would break anything to make longer usernames using a procedure such as Pal employed if your easier-to-use tool of choice won't allow it directly. It would be an interesting experiment....