[Gllug] Square brackets [OT]

[Joel Bernstein]

On Thu, Jun 09, 2005 at 03:11:03PM +0100, Ashley Evans wrote:
> Ashley Evans wrote:
> 
> >Hi,
> >
> >I'm asking here because I'm sure more than a few of you have moved 
> >from Exchange to Postfix, or other Linux mailserver.
> >
> >Migrated from MS mailserver, still using outlook* at a client.
> >some people are having their outgoing messages blocked by addresses 
> >with square brackets, I'm familiar with using <> in email addresses 
> >but not [].
> >* not for long!!!
> >
> >Cheers,
> >Ashley
> >
> Sorry guys.
> 
> The addresses are in the form:
> 
> Ashley Evans [ hoshy at hoshy.co.uk ]

That's not a valid form for an RFC2822 address. It should be:
"Firstname Surname" <mailbox at domain.com> or simply <mailbox at domain.com>.

No mail server that I can think of would accept 
RCPT TO: Ashley Evans [ hoshy at hoshy.co.uk ]

It's just wrong.

> I would expect <> to be used.  Is this an outlook thing is one question. 

I've not seen it before. What are you running for your SMTP server?

> Mainly I'd like to know the arguments for and against getting postfix to 
> accept addresses like this.  If that's even possible.

I don't run Postfix, but in any event there are 2 very good reasons not
to:

1) address@[1.2.3.4] is a valid form for an archaic addressing method
called "IP literal" and is usually blocked these days, so you're roughly
emulating a totally different system - it's assumed that a host
component of an email address containing [] will be an IP literal.

2) it's just plain WRONG.

Take a step back. What are you trying to achieve, and what software
[client and server] are you using to do it? Are the mails addressed in
that weird way coming straight out of Outlook? Does Outlook actually try
to use them in a RCPT TO command?!

/joel
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