Admin edit-member problem in multi-user installation

Forum: HyperNews Security
Date: 1999, Sep 21
From: Jonathan Hartzog

If you change the User ID of an existing administrator to the same name as the account, the authentication directory, "account" gets moved to "account-old" which breaks all the .htaccess links. The links point to /path/to/hndocs/account/hnpeople/account/.hnaccess which no longer exists.
Given an installation like:
Account: jth User ID: jth@csun.edu Email: jth@csun.edu
I would like my User ID to be jth so I go to edit-member.pl and change it. This moves the auth info in .../hndocs/hnpeople/jth to .../hndocs/hnpeople/jth-old and the whole account breaks.
My temporary workaround is to not let our people change their User IDs but this is not the Right Thing to do here.
We use Linux 2.2.12, Apache 1.3.9 and Perl 5.00503. If you would like an account to try this on or access to the machine let me know.
Jonathan
PS: If you have room for me on the development team I would like to help.