Subject: Re: [netatalk-admins] 1.4b2+asun and passwords
From: Michael A. Erickson (miericks@maxwell.psy.cmu.edu)
Date: Wed Mar 18 1998 - 10:50:09 EST
"Eric KieslingThompson" <duetc@email.msn.com> wrote:
> Until now, I've had no problem with the cases of usernames. If mac networks
> convert all to lowercase as you indicate, then you're right that this makes
> the afpd server more like a mac server.
I'm not sure of the underlying mechanism, but forcing all the
characters to one case or another is an effective way of being case
insensitive.
> ummm, why did it work before?
Since I'm not hearing from anyone else, I'd guess that it it was added
to make netatalk servers more like other servers between the last
umich version and the current asun version. I think it's a great
idea.
I think this patch will change it back to using mixed case passwords
(although I haven't tested it):
------------------------------------------------------------
--- auth.c.save Wed Mar 18 10:38:41 1998
+++ auth.c Wed Mar 18 10:39:13 1998
@@ -294,6 +294,9 @@
int i;
+/* Removed to allow for mixed case usernames */
+/*
for (i = 0; i < len; i++)
name[i] = tolower(name[i]);
+*/
if (pwent = getpwnam(name))
------------------------------------------------------------
> I guess I'll go with the flow and convert usernames to lower case. Aside
> from getting around this particular problem, I still don't understand why
> usenames should "generally" be lowercase (that's the ignorance at work).
> But if you say it, and if asun says it, that's good enough for me right now.
It's not _should_ in the sense that lowercase names are somehow better
than upper case, it's that in my experience with unix boxes, usernames
tend to be lowercase. Nevertheless, as far as I know unixes are case
sensitive and upper case and mixed case usernames are allowed.
Because of the appletalk's case insensitivity and unix's lower case
convention, downcasing the atalk username before shipping it off to
getpwnam seems like a reasonable solution.
\MaE
Michael A. Erickson
erickson@cmu.edu
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