From owner-freebsd-questions Wed May 12 11:15:26 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from pi.yip.org (yip.org [142.154.7.242]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0AA8C14FFC; Wed, 12 May 1999 11:15:14 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from melange@yip.org) Received: from localhost (melange@localhost) by pi.yip.org (8.9.2/8.9.2) with ESMTP id OAA24334; Wed, 12 May 1999 14:15:12 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from melange@yip.org) Date: Wed, 12 May 1999 14:15:12 -0400 (EDT) From: Bob K X-Sender: melange@localhost To: Christopher Michaels Cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: RE: dots in usernames? In-Reply-To: <6C37EE640B78D2118D2F00A0C90FCB4401105899@site2s1> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Well, I did some reading through rfc821, and an email address is defined as follows: ::= "@" ::= | ::= | "." ^^^ ! ::= | ::= """ """ ::= "\" | "\" | | ::= | "\" ::= any one of the 128 ASCII characters, but not any or ::= any one of the 128 ASCII characters (no exceptions) ::= "<" | ">" | "(" | ")" | "[" | "]" | "\" | "." | "," | ";" | ":" | "@" """ | the control characters (ASCII codes 0 through 31 inclusive and 127) (the above from ftp://passaic.cs.miami.edu/pub/rfc/rfc821.txt) So if I've interpreted that right, .'s are indeed a legal part of the local-part of email addresses (addresses with dots in 'em are also used in various examples of that rfc); this would say to me that any mailer that can't handle dots in the username should be considered non-RFC compliant. I've bcc:'d freebsd-questions and cc:'d freebsd-current (which I'm not on, btw) as I think the discussion is now headed in that direction. People on -current: Just to recap, adduser (and rmuser) disallow .'s in usernames on FreeBSD-stable; passwd(5) cites that some mailers have problems with dots in usernames. However, they are becoming more common, and are a legal part of rfc821. So what are people's thoughts on allowing that in -current, and if there's no complaints, backporting it to -stable? It seems really really trivial... On Wed, 12 May 1999, Christopher Michaels wrote: > That would be the e-mail message that I had in memory when I sent my reply. > The way I see it, is if you've made the change and nothing's broken then why > not! I think most of the wariness if from an earlier day when dots actually > did break things. Now a days the mail software has to take into account > that there ARE email addresses with dots in them. > > Maybe someone else on this list is better qualified to answer your question > than I am, tho. > > I've noticed that most of the places that I've seen dots in user names are > on Microsoft mail servers and windows NT logins. I personally have never > seen them on a UNIX server. But again, just test it out and see what > breaks, if nothing breaks then I don't see a problem with it. > > -Chris > > Anyone out there want to chime in as to why there shouldn't be dots in user > names? > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Bob K [SMTP:melange@yip.org] > > Sent: Tuesday, May 11, 1999 6:36 PM > > To: Christopher Michaels > > Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org > > Subject: RE: dots in usernames? > > > > Hmm. I searched freebsd-questions, and all I could come up with was the > > following: > > > > ---- > > Date: Sun, 14 Mar 1999 21:39:39 +1000 > > From: Greg Black > > To: Shawn Ramsey > > Cc: Kelvin , > > freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG > > Subject: Re: Question about login name > > Message-ID: <19990314113940.12057.qmail@alpha.comkey.com.au> > > > > [snip] > > > > It's also worth reading the man page for passwd(5), in > > particular the following partial paragraph: > > > > The login name must never begin with a hyphen (``-''); > > also, it is strongly suggested that neither upper-case > > characters nor dots (``.'') be part of the name, as this > > tends to confuse mailers. > > > > And then ask yourself if you really *need* to use this kind of > > login or if it's just something you'd like. If you don't really > > need it (and there must be very few reasons why you might), you > > would probably be better off not to do it. > > > > -- > > Greg Black > > ---- > > > > I'm just wondering how much of a problem this poses at this point; I'm > > seeing more and more email addresses with dots in the username (not to say > > that just because people do it means it's a good thing ;). Sendmail 8.9.2 > > certainly doesn't mind it, nor does Exim. Is there a list of mailers that > > don't like this? Is there perhaps a more appropriate forum to ask this > > sort of question? > > > > /me really should read manpages more often... > > > > On Tue, 11 May 1999, Christopher Michaels wrote: > > > > > My understanding of the situation is that you don't want dots in the > > > usernames because it tends to confuse mailer programs (mainly). > > > Unfortunately our web proxy isn't being very cooperative at work here > > today > > > and I can't lookup what I'm looking for in the archives. > > > > > > This was a top of discussion maybe a moth ago. > > > > > > -Chris > > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > > From: Bob K [SMTP:melange@yip.org] > > > > Sent: Tuesday, May 11, 1999 11:42 AM > > > > To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org > > > > Subject: Re: dots in usernames? > > > > > > > > On Tue, 11 May 1999, Bob K wrote: > > > > > > > > > > will it break anything? I know I can add an alias; I'm just > > hoping to > > > > > > simplify things for the user in question. I suppose after doing > > that, > > > > a > > > > > > make world & rebuild of any ports using utmp would be in order? > > > > > > > > > > Just realized that a make world would not be in order, since I > > wouldn't > > > > > have changed any actual variables. Also, please cc: me in any > > replies, > > > > as > > > > > I'm not on the list. Thanks! > > > > > > > > Damn, sorry, forgot to mention that it's 3.1-19990323-STABLE. > > > > > > > > melange@yip.org - Mustard gas: The kids love it! > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > > > > with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message > > > > > > > melange@yip.org - Mustard gas: The kids love it! > melange@yip.org - Mustard gas: The kids love it! To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message