samba - Jun 2005 - AIX 4.3 machine accounts > 8 characters?

Hi,

I am trying to plan a deployment of Samba as a PDC, where Samba 3.0.14a on
AIX 4.3 would be controlling about 150 PC's.  This is stricly login &
login scripts, no roaming profiles.  It is currently working and
participating in the "Workgroup" politely.

This was a migration from Samba 2.0.7, and to keep things simple I am using
        passdb backend = smbpasswd

AIX is limited to 8 character passwords and with the $ at the end of the
machine name, that limits it to 7 characters, not very nice with 150 PC's
to try to identify in a recognizable manner.  I would like to resolve this
somehow...

Is it possible to use the
        username map = /usr/local/samba/private/usermap.txt
to map longer machine names to locally acceptable one (ie:  8 characters)?

If not, can I (using "vi") create longer machine names without blowing
up
Samba?  The answer might be out of Samba's control if it uses getpwent et
al. to access the information, but perhaps someone knows?

Thanks,
Steve Williams