Re: [exim] Exim rejects colons in from name: bug or correct …

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Author: Phil Pennock
Date:  
To: Paul Schreiber
CC: exim-users
Subject: Re: [exim] Exim rejects colons in from name: bug or correct behaviour? [corrected]
On 2011-03-14 at 01:26 -0400, Paul Schreiber wrote:
> This fails in exim, but succeeds in Postfix:
> /usr/sbin/sendmail -i -t -f foo: bar \<info@???\> someone@???
>                                                  ^^^^ note the colon after foo: 

>
> This succeeds in both:
> /usr/sbin/sendmail -i -t -f foo bar \<info@???\> someone@???
>
> Is this an exim bug or not?


It is not an Exim bug. You are not supplying a well-formed address.

This works:
exim -f '"foo: bar" <foo@???>'

The value passed to -f should be the envelope sender which is only the
"info@???" part. Exim is able to parse out the sender address from a
*well-formed* RFC 822 address, including a display name, because this
sort of invocation error is so common. So Exim is doing a little more
than it should by even *trying* to handle this. What Exim does handle
is a "mailbox" address, not a "group" specification:

my-group: fred <fred@???>, barney <barney@???>;

The colon is used as part of the construct to denote a group address,
rather than a mailbox address.

If you want a colon as part of the display-name, then the display-name
needs to be quoted, as a colon is not permitted inside the "atom"
construct.

If you wish to verify this, the relevant grammar constructions are in
RFC 5322 (the current successor to RFC 822).

Regards,
-Phil