[wellylug] Usernames with a '.'

[Mark Foster]

On Wed, 18 Jan 2006, jumbophut wrote:

> On 1/18/06, pmilne  wrote:
>> I seem to remember that such user names are 'deprecated' as leaving a security
>> hole in some circumstances.  I note that a Government Department has recently
>> changed its E-mail names from e.g. joe.bloggs to joe_bloggs, probably for this
>> reason.
>>
>
> At least one government department has changed its email addresses
> from joe_bloggs to joe.bloggs in recent years.  I am not aware of any
> changing it in the other direction, but it is certainly possible.  In
> any case, there should be absolutely no problem with using a
> full-stop.  As far as I know it's just a problem with useradd.  vipw
> is your friend.

If its for email address purposes the best thing to do is use an alias in 
many situations.

However i'm fairly certain that I have usernames that include the period 
without any troubles, they date back to my old woody install I think (or 
might even be older).

It did cause me the odd bit of grief due to things like chown and my habit 
of using user.group notation - frankly for anything ive done in the last 
couple of years i've preferred to keep the periods out of the usernames. 
Aliases mean that any other email address needed is still feasible.

Mark.