ok it seems like vipw will let me make any length usernames. i just tried 
up to 70 characters. but when i tried to su to any of the names, it seems 
like the limitation is at 16 characters. otherwise it'll report su: unknown 
login "super_long_name_w_more_than_16_chars"

now i just tried sending mail to a user 01234567890123456789012345678901 
(32 chars) and it reported user unknown..

so is the limitation at 16 chars max?

At 08:24 AM 3/9/00 -0600, mocha wrote:
>i just made two accounts with the following usernames and they both work:
>
>0123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890
>
>01234567_89012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890
>                ^----- Note '_' is inserted as the 9th character which is 
> different.
>
>that's a lot of characters. vipw didn't complain at all.
>
>i suppose i'll try 70 chars and see if that will work too.. maybe the 
>limit is 64?
>
>At 03:19 PM 3/9/00 +0100, cpg@aladdin.de wrote:
>
>
>
>>On 03/09/2000 02:07:59 PM GMT Rob Windsor wrote:
>> >
>> >Verily did mocha write:
>> >
>> >> can we do 8+ characters in usernames? i asked this back in .8 era, but
>>i've
>> >> not been paying attention. with our systems used for the public, they
>>want
>> >> more than 8 characters.
>> >
>> >You can (i.e. "majordomo"), but the daily security script will whine about
>>it.
>> >
>> >So far, I haven't seen a problem with it, otherwise.
>>
>>Does it work if 2 names are different only in the 8+ letter?
>>e.g. majordomo and majordoma  ?
>>
>>regards,
>>chris