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Subject: Re: UIDs greater than 65535 ?
To: joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de
Date: Sat, 15 Jun 1996 21:02:24 -0700 (PDT)
From: "JULIAN Elischer" <julian@ref.tfs.com>
Cc: freebsd-current@FreeBSD.org, james@expresslane.ca
In-Reply-To: <199606151350.PAA03498@uriah.heep.sax.de> from "J Wunsch" at Jun 15, 96 03:50:56 pm
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> 
> As James FitzGibbon wrote:
> 
> > But pw_scan.c uses this check routine :
> > 
> > 	if (id > USHRT_MAX) {
> >                 warnx("%s > max uid value (%d)", p, USHRT_MAX);
> >                 return (0);
> >         }
> > 
> > So that although a userid can have a 32-bit value, the password scanning
> > routines won't allow anything higher than 16 bit.
> > 
> > Is this just an oversight (i.e. can we just change the constant in
> > pw_scan.c? ) or are there other reasons why the UIDs are limited to 16-bit
> > ?
> 
> I think that's for hysterical raisons.  Perhaps older (unsupported)
> file systems like SYSVFS might break, as well as Yellow Plague.
We currently modify this to complain, but continue working
at my present employer..
I think I would like to submit a patch to make thios standard because we need 
UIDs > 16 bits and it IS legal but sometimes undesirable..
therefore it should be possible but annoying..
i.e. complains but continues...


julian(E)
> 
> -- 
> cheers, J"org
> 
> joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de -- http://www.sax.de/~joerg/ -- NIC: JW11-RIPE
> Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-)
>