Subject: Re: [netatalk-admins] 1.4b2+asun and passwords

From: "Eric KieslingThompson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 17 Mar 1998 08:58:46 -0800

I'm beginning to feel the weight of my ignorance.  I set up my accounts so
that certain types, e.g., shared types, start with smalls, and personal
accounts start with caps.  Just a convenience for me.  Some accounts are
accessed in multiple fashion: netatatalk, telnet, samba, etc.

Until now, I've had no problem with the cases of usernames.  If mac networks
convert all to lowercase as you indicate, then you're right that this makes
the afpd server more like a mac server.  In addition, I can see where it
would be additional overhead for afpd to try substituting cases, or whatever
else would be necessary to overcome this.

ummm,   why did it work before?

I guess I'll go with the flow and convert usernames to lower case.  Aside
from getting around this particular problem, I still don't understand why
usenames should "generally" be lowercase (that's the ignorance at work).
But if you say it, and if asun says it, that's good enough for me right now.
Luckily, I don't have too many to change, and the users should not have to
deal with any changes.

:)

Thanks for your help.

erict

-----Original Message-----
From: Michael A. Erickson <[email-masked]>
To: Eric KieslingThompson <[email-masked]>
Cc: [email-masked] <[email-masked]>; [email-masked]
<[email-masked]>
Date: Tuesday, March 17, 1998 8:02 AM
Subject: Re: [netatalk-admins] 1.4b2+asun and passwords

>> YOU'RE RIGHT!!!
>>
>> Thank you for the tip.  I changed the passwd file username entry so that
it
>> started with a small, instead of cap, and it worked.  In addition, the
>> chooser login name still started with a cap, just as you had indicated.
>>
>>
>> But this is a problem, right?  Why is it doing this?
>
>I took a real quick look at auth.c in the afpd source, and it goes
>through the username and makes it all lower case.
>
>Actually, I consider this a feature as long as it's documented.  I'm
>pretty sure that macintosh usernames are case insensitive.  Thus, if
>you ensure that all your passwd file entries are lower case, this
>makes the afpd server more like a mac.
>
>This might do well to make it into a readme or a faq if it's not
>already there.  (I couldn't find it, but I have had pretty bad luck
>geting info on netatalk outside of this list.)
>
>\MaE
>
>Michael A. Erickson
>[email-masked]
>

---

From: "Michael A. Erickson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Mar 1998 10:50:09 -0500

"Eric KieslingThompson" <[email-masked]> wrote:

> the afpd server more like a mac server.

I'm not sure of the underlying mechanism, but forcing all the
characters to one case or another is an effective way of being case
insensitive.

> ummm,   why did it work before?

Since I'm not hearing from anyone else, I'd guess that it it was added
to make netatalk servers more like other servers between the last
umich version and the current asun version.  I think it's a great
idea.  

I think this patch will change it back to using mixed case passwords
(although I haven't tested it):

------------------------------------------------------------
--- auth.c.save	Wed Mar 18 10:38:41 1998
+++ auth.c	Wed Mar 18 10:39:13 1998
@@ -294,6 +294,9 @@
   int i;
 
+/* Removed to allow for mixed case usernames */
+/*
   for (i = 0; i < len; i++)
     name[i] = tolower(name[i]);
+*/
 
   if (pwent = getpwnam(name))
------------------------------------------------------------

> But if you say it, and if asun says it, that's good enough for me right now.

It's not _should_ in the sense that lowercase names are somehow better
than upper case, it's that in my experience with unix boxes, usernames
tend to be lowercase.  Nevertheless, as far as I know unixes are case
sensitive and upper case and mixed case usernames are allowed.
Because of the appletalk's case insensitivity and unix's lower case
convention, downcasing the atalk username before shipping it off to
getpwnam seems like a reasonable solution.

\MaE

Michael A. Erickson
[email-masked]

---

From: Rob Newberry <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Mar 1998 12:18:32 -0500 (EST)

> umich version and the current asun version.  I think it's a great

I think it was added in asun's version -- but I am not certain.

While I like the option, I think it ought to be used via a compile time
option (or better yet, a command line option).  I'm pretty certain our NT
servers are case-sensitive, mainly because I've had people say, "I can't
see any volumes!", and I go in their office, and change the first letter
of their login to lower-case (we standardized on all lower-case user names
for both NT and UNIX systems), and suddenly it works.  Little do Mac users
know that if they changed the owner name setting on the Mac to
all-lower-case, first-name-only, these problems would go away.

On the other hand, asun has added the ability to use the user's full name,
which is pretty cool -- CAP has this feature.  Still, since NT doesn't
support it, I leave my Mac's owner name as "rob".

---

From: a sun <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Mar 1998 09:06:42 -0800 (PST)

fyi, i've moved the downcasing bit of code in auth.c after the
getpwnam check. i'll release an a18.3 patch for that and other minor
issues related to compiling on sun machines. 

-a

---

From: "Christopher C. Petro" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Mar 1998 12:26:29 -0600

>Luckily, I don't have too many to change, and the users should not have to

	If you always make the user name lower case, then it never becomes
a problem.

---

From: Richard Knuckey <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 19 Mar 1998 09:26:38 +1200

>>usenames should "generally" be lowercase (that's the ignorance at work).

sendmail will not work if you have mixed case usernames. ie you will not be
able to send user "Richard" mail as most sendmail configurations will
convert this to richard and try to send mail to that user.

samba also converts names to lowercase.

An alternative for netatalk+asun is to set up your gecos information
corectly with the users real name. netatalk will match against that as well
as the login name, so you can use proper names on the Mac.