[Pkg-shadow-devel] "." in usernames, ambiguity, and +

[Mike Frysinger]

On Sunday 02 March 2008, Justin Pryzby wrote:
> I seem to recall about 1 year ago reading a discussion regarding
> resolution of an ambiguity centered around use of "." in usernames.  I
> think the problem was that . is also a possible separator between user
> and group names in eg. chmod/chown.  I forget exactly where the original
> discussion was (passwd bug log?) and any details.  However I just
> happened on some additional relevant information.
>
> POSIX apparently requires looking up the username if it's ambiguous, and
> falling back to interpretation as a UID.  However apparently GNU uses +
> to force interpretation as a UID:
> http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/html_node/Disambiguating-names
>-and-IDs.html#Disambiguating-names-and-IDs
>
> What/where was the previous discussion?  Is this even relevant?  Was the
> ultimate decision consistent with the other tools or could it be
> improved?

FWIW, we've just been blanket enabling dots as valid in libmisc/chkname.c in 
Gentoo and havent heard any complaints.  we heard plenty of complaints for 
the opposite behavior though (disallowing dots).
-mike
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