[Gllug] Square brackets [OT]

Ashley Evans hoshy at hoshy.co.uk
Thu Jun 9 14:41:33 UTC 2005


Joel Bernstein wrote:

>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
>  
>

Thanks.  I never wanted to enable this in the first place.  There's no 
problem but I want to make sure that I can tell the users with certainty 
that the address they're trying to send to is wrong full stop.  I've no 
idea how these address came to exist in Outlook anyway.

Cheers,

Ashley

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