Re: [EXIM] Case of local parts

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Author: Exim Users Mailing List
Date:  
To: eml
New-Topics: [EXIM] altering an header
Subject: Re: [EXIM] Case of local parts
[ On Thursday, February 25, 1999 at 09:33:49 (+0000), Philip Hazel wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: [EXIM] Case of local parts
>
> 3. We can probably assume that no Unix system admin will create two 
>    accounts that differ only in their case. 


Maybe no sane one would these days, but that's one of the the very
reasons why user-names *are* case sensitive in the first place.

The only silly example that comes to mind might be a local policy that
generates user-names using initials:

    Jane Alice Doe            JADoe
    John (no middle name) Adoe    JAdoe


It would be really totally insane for anyone to do this in real life,
but Murphy's Law no doubt applies -- I've seen worse rules in use.

I still think the old "fullnames" map available in smail-2.x was the
"right" way to implement the kind of mapping necessary so that e-mail
can be sent to addresses with local parts that do not exactly match the
Unix user-name (it was really just a special alias file and thus could
easily be implemented in exim). The map file could be generated with a
supplied script from the full names specified in the pw_gecos field. The
trouble with it was that it didn't work well unless local procedures
were modified to ensure the map file was always updated and complete
(and that map collisions were handled sanely).

-- 
                            Greg A. Woods


+1 416 218-0098      VE3TCP      <gwoods@???>      <robohack!woods>
Planix, Inc. <woods@???>; Secrets of the Weird <woods@???>


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