Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!sdd.hp.com!samsung!uunet!airs!ian
From: ian@airs.com (Ian Lance Taylor)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.sendmail
Subject: Re: Getting full name from sendmail (help!)
Message-ID: <1764@airs.com>
Date: 22 May 91 17:10:00 GMT
References: <1679@airs.com>
Sender: news@airs.com
Lines: 45

Earlier, I asked:

>I've configured sendmail so that all mail that isn't explicitly
>addressed locally gets forwarded to our main mail machine.  For
>example, my user name is ian and I'm on comton.airs.com.  Mail sent to
>``ian@comton.airs.com'' will get delivered locally, but mail sent to
>``ian'' will get forwarded to another machine which knows where my
>actual mailbox is.

>My problem is that sendmail is not inserting my full name in the From:
>field, because the $x macro is being set to blank.

A couple of people asked me to post a summary of responses, so here it
is.  I got very helpful replies from Neil Rickert and Per Hedeland,
for which I thank them profusely.

The problem is that sendmail runs the sender address through ruleset
zero, and only defines the $x macro from the passwd file if the mailer
selected is named ``local'' and if the sender address in the SMTP
envelope matches the From: header exactly.

I only had to make one change on the client machines to get this to
work (and no changes on the server machine).  I changed the definition
of $q to:

Dq$?x$x <$g>$|<$g>$.

This causes the From: line to look like ``From: <ian>''.  This will
then match the SMTP address specified in the ``MAIL FROM'' command.
When the address <ian> is run through ruleset 0 on the server machine,
it will find that is delivered to the mailer ``local'' (so that the
aliases get expanded) and it will insert my full name from the passwd
file on the server machine.

This worked for my situation because I was able to put all our users
into the passwd file on the server machine.  I was told that sites
which can't do this can fix the problem using sendmail 5.65 with the
IDA additions (which is available on uunet and probably other places).
I took a look at this, but the complexity dissuaded me from attempting
it.
-- 
Ian Taylor                   ian@airs.com                  uunet!airs!ian
First person to identify this quote wins a free e-mail message:
``Nobody believed him, so out of politeness to his listeners he pretended
  to be joking.''