Re: UID width

H. Peter Anvin (hpa@transmeta.com)
5 Jan 1999 00:05:48 GMT

Followup to: <368FB196.B6B3E969@pcshop.com.br>
By author: Juan Carlos Castro y Castro <jcastro@pcshop.com.br>
In newsgroup: linux.dev.kernel
>
> I just realized something: The include files for functions dealing with
> uids and gids (like getpwnam for instance) define them as 16 bit wide
> versus 32 bits in i86 Solaris!!! Whose fault is this? e2fs? gcc? Will it
> be upgraded? Can it be patched now?
>
> I'm about to make a Solaris-to-L:inux migration and I'll have to perform
> a few somersaults to fit the user database into 16 bits. Could be worse,
> I know. But someone, somewhere, is going to hit this limit like a brick
> wall. Think about big ISPs.
>

This is an FAQ. This is part of Linux' Minix legacy, and will be
fixed in the 2.3 kernel series. Binary backwards compatibility will
be provided with libc6 binaries, but not libc5 or earlier if uid/gid
>= 65535 are in use.

-hpa

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