Re: Does anyone know why RH9 does not allow useradd or adduser to create users with DOTS?

From: David Tomaschik (david_at_webgroup.org)
Date: 09/01/03 

Date: Mon, 01 Sep 2003 02:43:19 -0400

The problem most likely is an attempt to avoid confusion between
username.groupname and user.name. They do not wish for there to be any
possibility of someone thinking they are doing it one way when in fact
they are really causing a very different effect.

Rishi Gangoly wrote:
> Vwakes <vwakeNOSPAM100@softhome.net> wrote in message news:<Pine.LNX.4.55.0308281405110.12252@xnqnccn.cvarzna>...
>
>>On Thu, 28 Aug 2003 Mark R wrote:
>>
>>>"Rishi Gangoly" <rishi@theargoncompany.com> wrote in message
>>>news:1e6d1789.0308281137.85a59f0@posting.google.com...
>>
>>
>>Rishi, Pls don't multipost, crosspost like I am doing now!
>>
>>http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/crospost.html
>>
>>V.
>>
>>>It appears to be hardcoded into useradd. Nothing to do with any
>>>configuration from what I can tell.
>>>
>>>The only temporary workaround that I can see is to download an older version
>>>of shadowutils (RedHat 7.3 is ok I tested it on RH9)
>>>
>>>Taking a quick look though Google no-one has had any answer to this common
>>>question. I hope someone else can help out on this as downgrading programs
>>>that have a large security impact isnt really a good idea!
>
>
>
> Ah! Thanks for not flaming me and for the tip on the temp workaround.
> I promise never to make such a mistake again.
>
> As regards to the problem, although the work around would work, I'm
> more interested in knowing why this was done.
>
> I'm sure when the author for useradd made the change it was done for
> good reason. I just wanted to know what that reason was.
>
> I tried posting an e-mail to the author of useradd but the mail
> bounced back with a 'User Unknown' ;-)
>
> I've also done the following and it appears to be working.
>
> 1. useradd firstnamelastname
> 2. passwd firstnamelastname
> 3. modify /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow using vi with firstname.lastname
> 4. rename the /home/firstnamelastname folder to
> /home/firstname.lastname
> 5. sent e-mail to firstname.lastname
>
> And bingo it works without a problem.
>
> I just subscribed to the shadow mailing list.
> http://shadow.pld.org.pl
>
> There does not appear to be any activity on the mailing list but what
> the heck, I'll post my question there and hope to get a response.
>
> Regards
>
> Rishi

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