[comp.mail.sendmail] Sendmail v5.61 won't send to mixed case recipients

rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) (08/17/90)

In article <903@tharr.UUCP> chris@tharr.UUCP (Chris Allen) writes:
>
>Mail sent to local users with lower case names (eg chris) gets through ok
>
>Mail sent to local users with upper case names (eg CHRIS) gets through ok
>
>Mail send to local users with mixed case names (eg ChrisA) is thrown
>out with an "Unknown username" message, whether or not the user
>actually exists.
>
>I would suspect that this is a sendmail.cf problem, but cannot for the 

 Look at the mailer definition in 'sendmail.cf'.  In particular you need
to look at the local mailer, probably on a line beginning 'Mlocal'.  On
that definition there will be a string 'F=...' with a number of flags.

 You will most likely find that the 'u' flag is missing from this mailer,
but present in all other mailer definitions.  With the 'u' flag, case is
preserved.  Without the 'u' flag everything is converted to lower case.

 You can solve your problem by adding the 'u' flag.  But beware.  You may
only create new problems.  In particular all of that upper case only mail
will probably start bouncing.  Here are some other possible approaches to
consider:

 You might try an aliases entry:

ChrisA:	/usr/spool/mail/ChrisA

 You might try an entry

ChrisA:	\ChrisA

The first choice may not work unless ChrisA's mail box is publically writeable.
The second choice I am not sure about.  It is possible that the quoting with
a '\' will suppress the conversion to lower case.  A third choice (and the
easiest) is to create a login for 'chrisa' with the same uid as ChrisA.  ChrisA
may need to define an environment variable MAIL=/usr/spool/mail/chrisa or may
need to use 'mail -u chrisa' to read his mail.

-- 
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  Neil W. Rickert, Computer Sci Dept, Northern Illinois U., DeKalb IL 60115
  rickert@cs.niu.edu                                        +1-815-753-6940
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chris@tharr.UUCP (Chris Allen) (08/18/90)

I am running Sendmail v5.61 and have come up against a weird problem.

Mail sent to local users with lower case names (eg chris) gets through ok

Mail sent to local users with upper case names (eg CHRIS) gets through ok

Mail send to local users with mixed case names (eg ChrisA) is thrown
out with an "Unknown username" message, whether or not the user
actually exists.

I would suspect that this is a sendmail.cf problem, but cannot for the 
life of me work out what is worng. Any ideas would be much appreciated.

The system is a DG Aviion running DGUX 

Sendmail has this problem whatever mailer it is called from or even if
it is run directly. Typing sendmail ChrisA results in a
"ChrisA... User unknown" message.

Thanks in advance.

chris allen.


-- 
         chris@tharr.uucp  ..!ukc!axion!tharr!chris 
  Disclaimer: The views expressed above are those of my employer..   

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