Subject: long hostnames in utmp
To: None <current-users@NetBSD.ORG>
From: Andrew Wheadon <andrew@wipux2.wifo.uni-mannheim.de>
List: current-users
Date: 04/07/1996 13:58:56
What reasons are there for limiting the current length
hostname length to 16 characters ? (UT_HOSTSIZE in utmp.h)

When I take a look at last I usually find that more than
62% of the machines logging into my machine have hostnames
that are longer than 16 charaters. How about increasing the
length to 32 or 64 or whatever:

robert    ttyp5    rumpelkammer.uni Sun Apr  7 12:26 - 12:26  (00:00)
robert    ttyp5    rumpelkammer.uni-mannheim.de     Sun Apr  7 12:26-12:26 00:00
robertin  ttyp5123 rumpelkammer.uni0123456789abcdef Sun Apr  7 12:26-12:26 00:00

Admittedly many programs assume 16 chars in size and need it for
formatting on an 80char screen, but there is no reason why we
could not log all the chars anyway and have an option to last,
who etc for when we need the complete address.

I use utmp for logging ftpd and supserver, and need the who output
for setting DISPLAY amongst other things, and it's a real
pain in the neck :-(.

Any comments ?
	Cheerio
		Andrew

btw. logging the IP address would work for setting DISPLAY
but would otherwise be unacceptable for logging-information.
-- 
The cost of living hasn't affected it's popularity. (unknown)
current	release=doc host=wipux2.wifo.uni-mannheim.de \ "NetBSD-current mirror"
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