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Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 18:06:35 -0500 (EST)
From: Igor Peshansky <pechtcha AT cs DOT nyu DOT edu>
Reply-To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
To: "DePriest, Jason R." <jrdepriest AT gmail DOT com>
cc: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Subject: Re: username should be lower-case for $USER
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On Tue, 9 Jan 2007, DePriest, Jason R. wrote:

> On 1/9/07, David Smiley  wrote:
> >
> > I forgot to add, I log into a windows domain and so I can't set the
> > case. Perhaps this issue only relates to windows domain logins.
> > Maybe they are case insensitive because when I log into the domain, I
> > ALWAYS specify it in lower case.  I don't think I've ever seen it
> > presented to me (in Windows) as upper case.  Yet in CYGWIN,
> > $USER=DSMILEY.  If domain logins are case *in*sensitive (appears
> > likely), then it would seem to me that it should be normalized to
> > lower-case for use in CYGWIN.
>
> $USER is a Windows environment variable and Cygwin doesn't change it.
> It just reports what Windows says.

Not true.  $USER is actually a shell variable, and is (re)set by the shell
(bash, ash, tcsh, what have you).  You must be thinking of $USERNAME,
which is a Windows variable.

Cygwin sets it from the data it finds in /etc/passwd.  In fact, the only
thing that Cygwin actually uses is the SID in /etc/passwd -- everything
else (including the username) is under the user's control.

> I disagree that Cygwin should normalize it to lower case by default.
>
> You can do something creative with your logon process by sending the
> variable to some shell script and having it fix the case.
> [snip perl script]

Or you can edit /etc/passwd and make your username whatever you wish it to
be (just be sure to leave the SID unchanged).  For more information, see
the NTSEC section of the User's Guide (outdated as it is).
	Igor
-- 
				http://cs.nyu.edu/~pechtcha/
      |\      _,,,---,,_	    pechtcha AT cs DOT nyu DOT edu | igor AT watson DOT ibm DOT com
ZZZzz /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_		Igor Peshansky, Ph.D. (name changed!)
     |,4-  ) )-,_. ,\ (  `'-'		old name: Igor Pechtchanski
    '---''(_/--'  `-'\_) fL	a.k.a JaguaR-R-R-r-r-r-.-.-.  Meow!

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