ps and username size

Cristian Ionescu-Idbohrn cristian.ionescu-idbohrn at axis.com
Thu Jan 10 10:17:42 UTC 2008


On Wed, 9 Jan 2008, Lombard, David N wrote:

> Just to be sure, this doesn't guarantee unique output.  An integer
> string is a perfectly valid username, both on a full distro and
> bb/uc (just tested both).  It may be quite demented, but this is
> legal in /etc/passwd:
>
>   42:...:100:100:user 42:/home/42:/bin/sh
>   frederick:...:42:100:some user:/home/frederick:/bin/sh
>
> So, when ps displays "42", which is it?  Here's an example of the
> proposed patch w/ ssh logins by "42" and "frederick"

You have a point there.

> Again, this is truly a corner case, and I'm quite happy to argue any
> confusion is richly deserved...

Maybe a new ps option to force UIDs only instead of truncated
usernames would sort out the confusion.  How does this sound?


Cheers,

-- 
Cristian



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