Re: UID width

Khimenko Victor (khim@sch57.msk.ru)
Mon, 4 Jan 1999 17:24:56 +0300 (MSK)


In <368FB196.B6B3E969@pcshop.com.br> Juan Carlos Castro y Castro (jcastro@pcshop.com.br) wrote:
> I just realized something: The include files for functions dealing with
> uids and gids (like getpwnam for instance) define them as 16 bit wide
> versus 32 bits in i86 Solaris!!! Whose fault is this? e2fs? gcc? Will it
> be upgraded? Can it be patched now?

> I'm about to make a Solaris-to-L:inux migration and I'll have to perform
> a few somersaults to fit the user database into 16 bits. Could be worse,
> I know. But someone, somewhere, is going to hit this limit like a brick
> wall. Think about big ISPs.

PLEASE, read linux-kernel archives before starting panic, Ok ? This question
was already talked to death here few times. UID was, is and will be 16bit in
Linux kernel 1.x & 2.[012]. UID expansion is sheduled for 2.3 (may be not early
stages). This is VERY non-trivial task as UID size is hardcoded in many-many
places of kernel. Even if needed four bytes per inode is reserved in ext2fs.
For now -- use glibc2 (there are UIDs are 32bit even if you could not use
UIDs > 65535 just now and UID's and GID's in getpwnam ARE 32bit!) and hope for
best with 2.3 and then 2.4 (3.0?)...

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