[OpenAFS] pts create cross realm users

[Gunnar Krull]

On Thursday 29 July 2010 16:21:41 Jeffrey Altman wrote:
> On 7/29/2010 7:48 AM, Gunnar Krull wrote:
> > Hi all,
> > 
> > I have run into a problem creating cross realm users for our cell. It all
> > goes fine until the username exceeds a certain length. For example:
> > 
> > pts createuser -name asdfasdf@student.uni-goettingen.de -cell
> > informatik.uni- goettingen.de
> > User asdfasdf@student.uni-goettingen.de has id 1638879
> > 
> > pts createuser -name asdfasdfa@student.uni-goettingen.de -cell
> > informatik.uni- goettingen.de
> > pts: Badly formed name (group prefix doesn't match owner?) ; unable to
> > create user asdfasdfa@student.uni-goettingen.de
> > 
> > The documentation states that the username can consists of up to 63
> > characters. Thus I presume that the cell name is added to the username
> > which indeed would exactly reach the length limit. Is that presumption
> > correct?
> 
> It is roughly correct.  The cell name is not transmitted as part of the
> RPC to the pt server but when the foreign cell group entry is
> constructed the name ends up exceeding the limit.

When and where does this happen?

> 
> There is no workaround with the existing design of the pt server
> database.  An alternative pt server database schema could be devised and
> implemented that would permit the full 63 characters to be used for
> foreign users.

In the prdb.DB0 database file I can only find entries in form of 
"username@foreigncell". That would not exceed the 63 characters limit with 
long names. The local cell name is not part of the database entries. 

I'm trying to understand how the this works ...

Regards,
Gunnar