Mailing List Archive: Qmail: users

ampersand "&" in email address

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roger at rope

Feb 9, 2012, 7:10 AM

Post #1 of 4 (1343 views)
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ampersand "&" in email address

I'm seeing the following problem in the log files (minor changes
to protect the innocent and guilty):

info msg 1966555: bytes 468716 from <Food&Bev [at] remote> qp 27994
uid 220

info msg 1968033: bytes 223 from <food\@local.emailserver.com> qp 28003
uid 730

delivery 934057: deferral:
sh:_bev [at] remote:_command_not_found/Aack,_child_crashed._(#4.3.0)/

So, qmail is separating the message delivery into being from
"food" at the host/domain name of the local qmail server, AND from "bev"
at the actual sender's host/domain name.

It is, essentially, splitting the sender address at the ampersand
"&" and trying to send to the resulting two addresses.

Is there a fix for this so qmail can handle it like any other
email?

Thanks.

rwolfe at fpsoft

Feb 9, 2012, 7:56 AM

Post #2 of 4 (1289 views)
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RE: ampersand "&" in email address [In reply to]

I am sure there is, however, AFAIK, this would break the RFC compliance
qmail has. You might just want to try changing the address to
food_bev [at] remote or food_and_deb [at] remote or something similar.

-----Original Message-----
From: Roger Walker [mailto:roger [at] rope]
Sent: Thursday, February 09, 2012 10:11 AM
To: qmail ML
Subject: ampersand "&" in email address

I'm seeing the following problem in the log files (minor changes
to protect the innocent and guilty):

info msg 1966555: bytes 468716 from <Food&Bev [at] remote> qp 27994 uid
220

info msg 1968033: bytes 223 from <food\@local.emailserver.com> qp 28003
uid 730

delivery 934057: deferral:
sh:_bev [at] remote:_command_not_found/Aack,_child_crashed._(#4.3.0)/

So, qmail is separating the message delivery into being from
"food" at the host/domain name of the local qmail server, AND from "bev"
at the actual sender's host/domain name.

It is, essentially, splitting the sender address at the
ampersand "&" and trying to send to the resulting two addresses.

Is there a fix for this so qmail can handle it like any other
email?

Thanks.

feh at fehcom

Feb 9, 2012, 9:12 AM

Post #3 of 4 (1289 views)
Permalink

Re: ampersand "&" in email address [In reply to]

Hi Roger,

Am 09.02.2012 um 16:10 schrieb Roger Walker:

> I'm seeing the following problem in the log files (minor changes
> to protect the innocent and guilty):
>
> info msg 1966555: bytes 468716 from <Food&Bev [at] remote> qp 27994
> uid 220
>
> info msg 1968033: bytes 223 from <food\@local.emailserver.com> qp 28003
> uid 730
>
> delivery 934057: deferral:
> sh:_bev [at] remote:_command_not_found/Aack,_child_crashed._(#4.3.0)/
>
> So, qmail is separating the message delivery into being from
> "food" at the host/domain name of the local qmail server, AND from "bev"
> at the actual sender's host/domain name.
>
> It is, essentially, splitting the sender address at the ampersand
> "&" and trying to send to the resulting two addresses.
>

Hm. This is strange.

> Is there a fix for this so qmail can handle it like any other
> email?

I'm not aware, that qmail actually has a problem with '&' in the local part or behaves erratically as you mentioned.

man addresses:

Be wary of the following characters:

$&!#~`'^*|{}

Some users will not know how to feed these characters safely to their mail programs.

Thus, what you see at the final end:

> delivery 934057: deferral:
> sh:_bev [at] remote:_command_not_found/Aack,_child_crashed._(#4.3.0)/

seems to be due to a problem of your mail delivery instruction (.qmail). An '&' here defines a forwarding rule.

I need to investigate this in more detail. Again. you can use qmFind out of my Newanalyse package to check the qmail-send logs.

regards.
--eh.

>
> Thanks.

--
Dr. Erwin Hoffmann | FEHCom | http://www.fehcom.de | PGP Key-Id: 7E4034BE

marcus at synchromedia

Feb 9, 2012, 11:32 AM

Post #4 of 4 (1284 views)
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Re: ampersand "&" in email address [In reply to]

On 9 Feb 2012, at 16:56, Robert Wolfe wrote:

> I am sure there is, however, AFAIK, this would break the RFC compliance
> qmail has.

Which RFC? All of 822, 2822 and 5322 say that & is allowed in a local-part. It's true that many servers don't allow it, but that's not the RFC talking.

Marcus
--
Marcus Bointon
Synchromedia Limited: Creators of http://www.smartmessages.net/
UK info [at] han CRM solutions
marcus [at] synchromedia | http://www.synchromedia.co.uk/

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