What is the maximal length of usernames supported by Linux?

[Lukas Ruf <ruf@rawip.org>]

Dear all,

is there any restriction in size for the usernames of passwd?

man getpwent

provides the passwd structure

      struct passwd {
              char    *pw_name;       /* user name */
              char    *pw_passwd;     /* user password */
              uid_t   pw_uid;         /* user id */
              gid_t   pw_gid;         /* group id */
              char    *pw_gecos;      /* real name */
              char    *pw_dir;        /* home directory */
              char    *pw_shell;      /* shell program */
      };

thus, I cannot see any real limit of the size of username (pw_name).

Is this true?  Once I heared it was restricted to 8 characters...

OT: does anybody kknow if this holds for Solaris 6,7,8 and above too?

Thanks in advance!

wbr,
Lukas
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