> -----Original Message----- > From: owner-postfix-us...@postfix.org [mailto:owner-postfix-us...@postfix.org] > On Behalf Of Viktor Dukhovni > Sent: Tuesday, July 03, 2012 3:21 PM > To: postfix-users@postfix.org > Subject: Re: special characters in mail address > > On Tue, Jul 03, 2012 at 12:48:58PM +0000, Dentzer, Daniel wrote: > > > > > Beware that ! is a site separator in UUCP addresses. > > > > > > > > Good information. > > > > > > > > Is there a way to turn this off? > > > > > > this makes absolutely no sense > > > you have to keep in mind that EVERY mailserver involved for > > > delivering a message (and that can be many hops) has to accept a > > > address as valid > > > > > > so usually do not use special chars at all! > > > > Why does it makes no sense, these Characters are valid as written in RFC > 3696: > > The RFC only defines SMTP, not the whole email ecosystem. Sure > > mimsy!ch...@umd.edu > > is a local address at "umd.edu" from the perspective of SMTP, but (still!) the > majority of non-border Sendmail and Postfix systems will treat these as UUCP > addresses and become multi-hop open relays if the border MTA does not refuse > to forward these. Hence Postfix correctly treats these as source routes by > default. > > If your system consists of just your server and is not a border relay and > either refuses incoming mail or delivers it locally, then: > > swap_bangpath = no > > will disable UUCP support and allow incoming "abc!de" local parts, but these > will be treated with prejudice everywhere else, so RFC or no RFC this address > is not useful. There are de-facto standards that should or must not be > ignored. > > -- > Viktor.
After a bit searching, and the great comments of you all, it looks like -see text above- a general problem of Postfix (and other mailsystems). But on the other side, it is well known, that nobody should use unusual special characters. E.g. in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email_address#Specification are some more explanations: "Systems that send mail must be capable of handling outgoing mail for all valid addresses. Contrary to the relevant standards, some defective systems treat certain legitimate addresses as invalid and fail to handle mail to these addresses. Hotmail, for example, refuses to send mail to any address containing any of the following standards-permissible characters: !#$%*/?^`{|}~" But under Valid email addresses: !#$%&'*+-/=?^_`{}|~@example.org The result for me is, that I will persuade my company not to use most of the characters. Thank you all for the very fast and competent help. Daniel
