User name length

[Starrynight_1]

Hi

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

SN

[Pal Szabo_1]

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

[Mark Fenton]

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....