Re: dots in username

[Leonid Mamtchenkov <leonid leonid maks net>]

* Tom Mitchell <mitch48 sbcglobal net> [13-Jan-2004 23:44]:
> On Fri, Jan 09, 2004 at 12:36:40PM +0100, Zeremski Boris wrote:
> 
> > I can't find on Internet how to override limitation creation user names
> > with dot (example firs.last). This worked in previous distribution.
> > 
> > Any patch to shadow-utils-4.0.3-12 to allow this?
> 
[SKIP]
> The classic dislike and resistance for a user name like "fred.user" is
> mostly from the "chown" command.  The command "chown user:group" can
> also be entered as "chown user.group".  This is for compatibility with
> history and interoperability with other un.x vendors.  Adding dots
> opens the door for confusion where a group "bob" and a user
> "billy.bob" cause unexpected things to happen (errors, security
> lapses).
> 
> If you hack shadow-utils you also have to hack "chown" to disallow
> "user:group" == "user.group" usage to avoid the simple errors.

I've always followed the rule of escaping or quoting when unsure. This
should work:

chown some\.user.and\.some\.group some.file

or

chown "some.user"."and.some.group" some.file

Alternatively, changing owner can be done from some file manager which
escapes or quotes automagically.  One example would be Midnight
Commander (/usr/bin/mc).

-- 
 Leonid Mamtchenkov.
 http://www.leonid.maks.net