Filter
Top Products
64 Chapter 4 Setting Up User Accounts
A user name can contain no more than 255 bytes. Because long user names support
various character sets, the maximum number of characters for long user names ranges
from 255 Roman characters to as few as 63 characters in character sets where
characters occupy up to 4 bytes.
Use Workgroup Manager to edit the user name of an account stored in an Open
Directory domain, the local directory domain, or other read/write directory domain.
You can also use Workgroup Manager to review the user name in any directory domain
accessible from the server you’re using.
To work with the user name using Workgroup Manager:
1 In Workgroup Manager, click Accounts.
2 Select the user account you want to work with.
To select the account, click the globe icon, choose the directory domain where the
account resides, and then select the user account in the accounts list.
3 To authenticate, click the lock and enter the name and password of a directory domain
administrator.
4 In the Name field (in the Basic pane), review or edit the user name.
Initially, the value of the user name is “Untitled #,” where # is the sequential number
generated after the last generated number for an existing untitled user.
Avoid assigning the same name to more than one user. Workgroup Manager doesn’t let
you assign the same name to different users in any domain or in a domain in the
search policy. However, it can’t detect whether duplicates exist in other domains.
Modifying Short Names
A short name is an abbreviated name for a user, such as “mchen” or “annejohnson.”
Users can log in using a short name or the user name associated with his or her
accounts. The short name is used by Mac OS X for home folders.
When Mac OS X creates a user’s local or network AFP home folder, it names the
directory after the user’s short name. For more information about home folders, see
Chapter 7, “Setting Up Home Folders.”
You can have as many as 16 short names associated with a user account. For example,
you might want to use multiple short names as aliases for mail accounts. The first short
name is the name used for home folders and legacy group membership lists. Don’t
reassign that name after you save the user account.
A short user name can contain as many as 255 Roman characters. However, for clients
using Mac OS X v10.1.5 and earlier, the first short user name must be eight characters or
fewer.