From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Nov 30 01:15:17 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E201B16A4CE for ; Sun, 30 Nov 2003 01:15:16 -0800 (PST) Received: from smtp.infracaninophile.co.uk (happy-idiot-talk.infracaninophile.co.uk [81.2.69.218]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 942BF43F93 for ; Sun, 30 Nov 2003 01:15:14 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from m.seaman@infracaninophile.co.uk) Received: from happy-idiot-talk.infracaninophile.co.uk (localhost [127.0.0.1]) hAU9EXKU001253 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO); Sun, 30 Nov 2003 09:15:03 GMT (envelope-from matthew@happy-idiot-talk.infracaninophile.co.uk) Received: (from matthew@localhost)id hAU9EWoL001252; Sun, 30 Nov 2003 09:14:32 GMT (envelope-from matthew) Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2003 09:14:32 +0000 From: Matthew Seaman To: Marty Landman Message-ID: <20031130091432.GA885@happy-idiot-talk.infracaninophile.co.uk> Mail-Followup-To: Matthew Seaman , Marty Landman , iaccounts@northnetworks.ca, freebsd-questions@freebsd.org References: <6.0.0.22.0.20031129192754.04727c48@pop.face2interface.com> <1070155168.417.3.camel@ptp.northnetworks.ca> <6.0.0.22.0.20031129203036.04e2d218@pop.face2interface.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha1; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="sdtB3X0nJg68CQEu" Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <6.0.0.22.0.20031129203036.04e2d218@pop.face2interface.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.5.1i X-Spam-Status: No, hits=-4.9 required=5.0 tests=AWL,BAYES_00 autolearn=ham version=2.60 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 2.60 (1.212-2003-09-23-exp) on happy-idiot-talk.infracaninophile.co.uk cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org cc: iaccounts@northnetworks.ca Subject: Re: sendmail newbie question X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2003 09:15:17 -0000 --sdtB3X0nJg68CQEu Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Sat, Nov 29, 2003 at 08:36:57PM -0500, Marty Landman wrote: [Problems sending mail...] > In a moment. First I'll say what I do know: >=20 > - there is a /var/mail/Marty, empty > - emails to Marty go to root's mailbox with the message "user unknown" >=20 > I don't know much. :) >=20 > I did sendmails to localuser@SwamiSalami and Marty@SwamiSalami and this i= s=20 > what appended to /var/log/maillog Try changing your user account to 'marty' -- all lower case. Use vipw(8) to do that. In general under Unix, usernames are almost always all lower case and so are most host and domainnames. The problem is that sendmail(8) [ or any standards compliant MTA ] expects e-mail addresses to be case insensitive. The DNS copes pretty well with the host part -- if you look carefully, you'll see that the FreeBSD mailer uses '...@FreeBSD.org' and '...@freebsd.org' pretty much interchangeably. In fact, sendmail(8) will always match domainnames case insensitively, but will preserve the case of any addresses it processes. The tricky part is the username -- here sendmail just passes the username through in whatever case it gets *except* when it does final delivery (ie. when it passes the message to the local delivery agent). At that point, it maps the username to lowercase -- for historical reasons: when sendmail started out there were mail systems that didn't understand the distinction between lower case and upper case at all, and the addresses on e-mails passing through those systems would get case folded. However on unix systems, user 'Marty' is not automatically the same as user 'marty' or as user 'MARTY'. Such systems have long since vanished from the net, but I have a sneaking suspicion that even nowadays some windows mailers may decide that they "know best" how to capitalise names and will silently "correct" them for you. It is possible to set up sendmail to preserve the case of usernames but doing so would mean your mail system wouldn't be standards compliant, so I'll keep quiet on the issue -- unless anyone really does have a burning desire to know how? Cheers, Matthew --=20 Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil. 26 The Paddocks Savill Way PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey Marlow Tel: +44 1628 476614 Bucks., SL7 1TH UK --sdtB3X0nJg68CQEu Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.3 (FreeBSD) iD8DBQE/ybT4dtESqEQa7a0RAtCtAJwJIvi3E/jbS/8K1FRHO+bohoB8gwCfWEQn bXqKgpZjBXn3AAAupsDNrms= =61KA -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --sdtB3X0nJg68CQEu--