[comp.mail.elm] Resolution: Name on outgoing mail

rob@mtdiablo.Concord.CA.US (Rob Bernardo) (04/11/91)

FYI on an old issue:

A while back someone pointed out that her full name in the From: header
of mail she sent with ELM had her name in a different form than listed
in her .elmrc file. It turned out she corrected this by changing the
gcos field in her passwd entry.

I posted that I thought it was a bug that the .elmrc fullname did not
override the gcos field of the passwd entry.  It turns out I was sorta
wrong.  The .elmrc fullname *does* override the gcos field.  **But**, if
you have elm configured to use sendmail, you will likely have it
configured not to add that From: header, in which case sendmail adds it
and uses the gcos field as a source of your full name.
-- 
Rob Bernardo					Mt. Diablo Software Solutions
email: rob@mtdiablo.Concord.CA.US		phone: (415) 827-4301

andy@syma.sussex.ac.uk (Andy Clews) (04/18/91)

In article <1991Apr11.050952.11197@mtdiablo.Concord.CA.US>,
rob@mtdiablo.Concord.CA.US (Rob Bernardo) writes:
- A while back someone pointed out that her full name in the From: header
- of mail she sent with ELM had her name in a different form than listed
- in her .elmrc file. It turned out she corrected this by changing the
- gcos field in her passwd entry.
- 
- I posted that I thought it was a bug that the .elmrc fullname did not
- override the gcos field of the passwd entry.  It turns out I was sorta
- wrong.  The .elmrc fullname *does* override the gcos field.  **But**, if
- you have elm configured to use sendmail, you will likely have it
- configured not to add that From: header, in which case sendmail adds it
- and uses the gcos field as a source of your full name.

We had a similar problem, but we find we can get around it by creating a
NAME environment variable (in the .cshrc file, or whatever shell startup
file you use) and Elm takes the "From:" contents from the value of that
variable. We recommend our users to do this because they are not permitted
to change the Name in their /etc/passwd gcos field.

-- 
Andy Clews, Computing Service, Univ. of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9QN, England
JANET: andy@uk.ac.sussex.syma        BITNET: andy%syma.sussex.ac.uk@uk.ac