Topic: Number of characters in e-mail address

[Brandon Friedman]

Hi there,

We have install the E-smith server 4.0 final release but we have a problem with the number of characters allowed in the account name. Is there a patch or a way to increase that number?

Thanx

[Jay]

Hi Brandon,

There certainly is a way to increase the number.

Login to your e-smith S&G using the root account (same pwd as admin unless you've changed it).

Edit the file useraccounts in the directory /etc/e-smith/web/functions/

In there you'll find a piece of code stating:

if (length $acctName > 12)
   ....

Change the value to whatever you'd prefer.

However, it should be noted as to why that change was made.  During testing of the 4.0betas we discovered that sometimes Microsoft machines on the same network had complications with 'shares' (in the test case, ibay shares) with names longer than 12 characters.  So to be conservative and prevent added grief to our users, we decided to limit the length to 12 characters - at least until a better solution can be made.

So, you'll be "living on the edge" by having share names greater than 12.

Hope that helps.

[Brandon Friedman]

Hi

I did what you said but I get this error message:
Software error:
Cannot open /home/e-smith/accounts: Permission denied
For help, please send mail to the webmaster (admin@mycompany.xxx), giving this error message and the time and date of the error.

help!!

[Jay]

Try doing an ls -l on the directory:

/home/e-smith/

What are the permissions on the 'accounts' file?  I'm guessing that something got run and changed the proper permissions on it, or the directory hence preventing you from running.

The permissions should look something like this:
-rw-r--r--  1 root     root      3882   July 19 07:04   accounts

Also, what were you doing at the time of the software error message?  Were you trying to create a new account?  View existing accounts?

[Brandon Friedman]

ok I ran ls -l and it shows:
-rw-r--r--  1 root 586 jul 19 10:36

Also it happened after I changed the number in the file to 15 or 20 but as soon as I change it back to 12 it works again

It happened as I tried to add a new user - this is a new installation of e-smith server

I have not configured anything except the NIC

[Jay]

The system is not recognizing the correct group on the accounts file (and possibly, but hopefully not, on other files). (586) indicates a group id that the system doesn't recognize.

A temporary fix is to do the following command  (using root):

chgrp root accounts

Confirm that it changes the file permissions to read 'root' 'root'.

It would also be a good idea afterwards to run:

rpm -V e-smith-base

This will run a verification command on all the e-smith base RPMs for your system.  What it does is checks the rpm database original values to those of the current system for discrepancies in permissions, owner, group, file sizes, etc.

This SHOULD verify 'all clean' - any files indicated in the report have changed from the initial install.

I tried this on that test system, and the only one that popped up was /etc/e-smith/web/functions/useraccounts

Presumably because the file size changed due to the modification of > 16 characters as there appears to be no real discrepancies in the permissions on it.

[Brandon Friedman]

ok I have tried all of that but the problem seems to be persisting. I think I am gonna reinstall e-smith.

Also what editing program should I use for editing the useraccounts file? I load MC from redhat 6.0 cd.

Sorry I didn't mention that I am sort of a newbie so somethings may take a but longer ...

Will keep you posted

[Brandon Friedman]

Just an update:

I still have the same problem & I have just reinstalled.

I am however able to add the user accounts in /home/e-smith/accounts and the console shows the users in the list but I am unable to modify them etc.

I still need to be able to add users from the console!

Any other suggestions?? Maybe e-mail me your 'accounts' & 'useraccounts' file??

[Jay]

I was able to duplicate your 'modify' users problem.

One thing for sure is not to add users manually through the /home/e-smith/accounts file.

There are perl scripts that get run when you create a new user and press the button 'accept' which check the code I had you change (>12).

I managed to create a user using the e-smith manager (http://192.168.1.1/e-smith-manager) on the server, and was successful at creating one with 15 characters and a rule stating >16 not allowed.

Modifying that user was no problem.

I then tried one creating a user manually through the /home/e-smith/accounts file and - like you said - was successful and able to see it from the user manager.

Modifying it failed.

----

Have you tried using that new install to add a user from the manager?  Does it still throw the error you originally mentioned (permissions)?  Did the same group name (586) appear on the file when you modified the perl code?

[Brandon Friedman]

Ok well we tried reinstalling and that didn't work.
We have just loaded the beta again and that does work. We tried upgrading the beta but that over-writes the file so  it's back to square 1.

I dont think we have a solution yet. I think we are gonna have to use the beta for the time being?

Any other suggestions?