misc/161091: Max username length is 16 characters

[Stephane Lapie]

>Number:         161091
>Category:       misc
>Synopsis:       Max username length is 16 characters
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       non-critical
>Priority:       low
>Responsible:    freebsd-bugs
>State:          open
>Quarter:        
>Keywords:       
>Date-Required:
>Class:          change-request
>Submitter-Id:   current-users
>Arrival-Date:   Wed Sep 28 06:50:03 UTC 2011
>Closed-Date:
>Last-Modified:
>Originator:     Stephane Lapie
>Release:        8.2-RELEASE
>Organization:
Aozora Bank
>Environment:
FreeBSD fcc4svnapf01.aozora.lan 8.2-RELEASE #1: Mon Jun 13 12:33:03 JST 2011    stephanelapie at fcc4svnapf02.aozora.lan:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC  amd64
>Description:
The system only allows usernames to be 16 characters (definitions of UT_NAMESIZE in include/utmp.h, and MAXLOGNAME in sys/sys/param.h), which turns out to be a problem in our company, where we make up administrator usernames in the form of <firstname><lastname>, which turns out quite often to require more than 16 characters.

It would be nice if the system was built to support up to 32 characters, like many other OSes do.
>How-To-Repeat:
Creation of users via adduser will fail if the username is more than 16 characters. Obviously, directly editing password database files does not work either, the system won't acknowledge usernames beyond 16 characters.
>Fix:
I wrote a quick patch to apply to the whole source tree, that modifies :
- /usr/src/include/utmp.h
- /usr/src/sys/sys/param.h
to bring up the login name max length to 32 characters (not including NUL)

At my company, we are building our own releases and our own packages from the ports, to ensure consistency. The above patch has been tested since FreeBSD 8.0-RELEASE, and releases/packages generated relying on it have been ran in production for two years now, with no issues detected.

Is there anything I missed, or any reasons for retaining the 16 character limitation?

Patch attached with submission follows:

--- ./include/utmp.h.old	2010-03-02 17:15:51.000000000 +0900
+++ ./include/utmp.h	2010-03-02 17:16:09.000000000 +0900
@@ -53,7 +53,7 @@
  * UT_HOSTSIZE is also too small to hold most common hostnames or IPv6
  * addresses.
  */
-#define	UT_NAMESIZE	16	/* see MAXLOGNAME in <sys/param.h> */
+#define	UT_NAMESIZE	32	/* see MAXLOGNAME in <sys/param.h> */
 #define	UT_LINESIZE	8
 #define	UT_HOSTSIZE	16
 
--- ./sys/sys/param.h.old	2010-03-02 17:17:18.000000000 +0900
+++ ./sys/sys/param.h	2010-03-02 17:17:36.000000000 +0900
@@ -75,7 +75,7 @@
 
 #define	MAXCOMLEN	19		/* max command name remembered */
 #define	MAXINTERP	32		/* max interpreter file name length */
-#define	MAXLOGNAME	17		/* max login name length (incl. NUL) */
+#define	MAXLOGNAME	33		/* max login name length (incl. NUL) */
 #define	MAXUPRC		CHILD_MAX	/* max simultaneous processes */
 #define	NCARGS		ARG_MAX		/* max bytes for an exec function */
 #define	NGROUPS		(NGROUPS_MAX+1)	/* max number groups */


>Release-Note:
>Audit-Trail:
>Unformatted: