Another possible kernel enhancement...

[John F Haugh II]

In article <654 at uswnvg.UUCP> dv at uswnvg.UUCP (Dan Volkman) writes:
>                                   As a side note, we also discovered
>that if a group definition line in /etc/group exceeds BUFSIZ serious
>obstacles appear.  It appears that the "getgr..." functions do not
>allow a continuation character (I think they are using "fgets".).

Yes, this seems to be the case.  Also, there are serious obstacles
to editors with very long lines.  This system, vi for example, seems
incapable of editing files with lines longer than 4KB.

The solution is to permit the "\" character to function as a line
continuation character on input, and add "\" characters on output.

The /etc/group file, if put into DBM format, has a similiar
transformation made - each record should be re-blocked into some number
of smaller records which will be re-assembled on input, and re-created
on output.

These changes have been made in the next release of the shadow login
system myself and various netters have been working on.
-- 
John F. Haugh II                             UUCP: ...!cs.utexas.edu!rpp386!jfh
Ma Bell: (512) 832-8832                           Domain: jfh at rpp386.cactus.org
"I've never written a device driver, but I have written a device driver manual"
                -- Robert Hartman, IDE Corp.