Re: Case sensitivity of user/group names (was Re: DBIS commentary)

Well, in a cleanly integrated environment, I'd expect to see most
users' Microsoft SamAccountName and POSIX uid be identical lower-cased
strings less than 20 characters long.  I believe all currently
shipping LDAP directory implementations support the necessary schema.
Certainly AD and OpenLDAP both do.

SamAccountName should be case-insensitive, uid should be
case-sensitive.  If you use each one appropriately in the environment
for which it is intended, you can let POSIX sysadmins and Windows
sysadmins retain whatever preferences, whims or bigotries they
treasure.  End users will be able to use all their systems as the
documentation directs them, and programmers will be able to rely on
their man pages &etc.

I just don't see any significant advantages to using a single naming
attribute shared with other systems.   Why bother?   It's all pain, no
gain.  Keeping case-sensitive and case-insensitive versions of user
identifiers is easier and gives better results.  All software on the
local node will perform as expected, and no OS documentation needs to
be rewritten.

--Charlie