Re: SEUL: Target user for SEUL

["Erik Walthinsen (Omega)" <omega@sequent.com>]

Reply-to: omega@seul.org <!!>

On Thu, 22 Jan 1998, George Bonser wrote:

> Sure is.  All I was saying is that to have an additional name for it that
> the user already understands might (or might not) be helpful.

Yup.  I was talking with a friend just now about this, and we figured that
it'd be simplest to just add another line at the top of /etc/passwd:

Administrator:ABCDEFGHIJK:0:0:Adminisrtator:/root:/bin/bash

That keeps the 'root' name (the second line), and all lookups would now
return 'Administrator'.  There are a couple problems with this, though:

1) usernames aren't case-sensitive, so would a getpwent() return the
string verbatim or lowercased?
2) most programs assume 8 char usernames.  I know this is mostly a false
restriction, as I have a modified binary of /bin/ls that will print up to
16 chars for the group name.  Username shouldn't be any different.

Of course, /bin/ls isn't an issue, but we have to be careful with all the
other programs we use...


     Erik Walthinsen <omega@seul.org> - SEUL Project system architect
        __
       /  \                SEUL: Simple End-User Linux -
      |    | M E G A            Creating a Linux distribution
      _\  /_                         for the home or office user