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Re: [ldapext] Case sensitivity of user/group names (was Re: DBIS commentary)

Jordan Brown <Jordan.Brown@oracle.com> Fri, 04 December 2015 19:03 UTC

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To: "Oza, Dhairesh" <Dhairesh.Oza@netapp.com>, Charlie <medievalist@gmail.com>
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From: Jordan Brown <Jordan.Brown@oracle.com>
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Date: Fri, 04 Dec 2015 11:03:48 -0800
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Subject: Re: [ldapext] Case sensitivity of user/group names (was Re: DBIS commentary)
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On 12/3/2015 11:05 PM, Oza, Dhairesh wrote:
> They shouldn't be comparing names but uids/gids.

Unfortunately, it's not always that simple.

An e-mail program may have a configuration file with alias entries... are they 
case sensitive?
Any program might keep per-user files somewhere, named after the user... is the 
file system case sensitive?

In general, any configuration file might have user names in it (because they're 
the appropriate human interface), and might compare names because that's the 
obvious way to do it.

People who say that case-insensitive user names may cause subtle problems are 
absolutely correct.  But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't head that way.

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