Re: [Exim] square brackets in To header

In article <3B446068.29591719@???>,
Alexei Saveliev <lexa@???> wrote:
>I have Exim server running in production environment for 6 months
>and had no problem with it.
>But now this thing is driving our customers mad.
>The case is that someone is trying to sent messages with receiver
>in form Customer Name [some info] <email@domain>
>I've checked this form of address with -bt option and Exim reports it
>as "missing or malformed local part".

That is a completely valid address for in the To: header, but it
isn't for the envelope-to. Those 2 have completely different syntaxes.

The To: header can contain all kinds of "junk", as long as there is
a valid email address somewhere in there. In the case of
Customer Name [some info] <email@domain>, the email@domain part is
the email address itself, the rest is merely comments. See RFC2822
for more about this then you would ever want to know ;)

However for _routing_ mail, only the email@domain part is used. That
is also what you feed to exim on the command line, or what you feed
to it using SMTP (RCPT TO: <email@domain>).

If someone is trying to send you mail with at the SMTP level
RCPT TO: Customer Name [some info] <email@domain> then their
mailer is broken beyond all repair and it should be disconnected
from the 'net right away.

But, in the To: header, Customer Name [some info] <email@domain>
is absolutely legal. What exactly is breaking ?

Mike.