Username Length

[Tracie Davis]

Hi All,

Is there a work around to add users with name that have more than 8 characters on a 10.20 box? I have been editing the passwd file in order to allow larger usernames. I also have to rename their home dir. Sam always give me an error message.

Thanks

Tracie

[Patrick Wallek]

I haven't found anything about a workaround for 10.20. I found the following for 11.0 though:

http://us-support2.external.hp.com/cki/bin/doc.pl/sid=c56ba4ce0d92d4be66/screen=ckiDisplayDocument?docId=200000053891756

[Joseph C. Denman]

I am using 11.0, but have you tried running the useradd, with appropriate options, from the command prompt? If it allows long names, you could write a script to add the users calling the useradd command.

...jcd...

[Tracie Davis]

Even using a script with the /usr/sam/lbin/useradd.sam command I still cannot create users with long names.

[Rick Garland]

I understand that HP-UX 11.00 can have usernames longer than 8 characters but other issues, such as NIS, FTP, etc..., still are at the 8 character limit. So even though you could logon to a system with >8 characters, other services do not like it too well.

[Joseph C. Denman · Accepted solution]

I agree with Rick, there could be reprocusions with using the long file names as far as other services. However, if you must, I would write a script to modify the password file and homedir.

psuedo code

#!/bin/sh
#parameters bogusname reallogin
copy passwd to passwd.old
useradd with option $1 plus....
mv $1 $2 #change the homedir
use sed to modify the passwdfile

it would be much easier than using sam and then manually making the changes.

...jcd...