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From: rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.sendmail
Subject: Re: FUZZY matching in 5.65a/IDA-1.42
Message-ID: <1991Jun21.204805.15905@mp.cs.niu.edu>
Date: 21 Jun 91 20:48:05 GMT
References: <0cMZDsO00j41MBwG8F@andrew.cmu.edu>
Organization: Northern Illinois University
Lines: 38

In article <0cMZDsO00j41MBwG8F@andrew.cmu.edu> mikem+@andrew.cmu.edu (Michael Meyer) writes:
>I'm using sendmail 5.65a/IDA-1.42 with fuzzy name matching turned on.
>I have noticed that if there is a user, say "Fred Blogs" with user name
>fb23 then mail to  fred.blogs will get spooled to /usr/spool/mail/fb23
>even if there is an entry in /etc/aliases.  I would like to retain the
>Thanks,
>Mike Meyer

  If you had an alias for fred.blogs that would be used.  The fuzzy matching
occurs after the time that alias looking is done.

  This is not really an IDA problem.  It is an expectation problem.  You
were always able to bypass alias matching for the 'fb23' alias if the mail
were sent to "fb23" or f"b2"3 or \fb23 (etc) instead of to fb23.  For
that matter a user could do:  /bin/mail -d fb23 < file
and bypass sendmail completely.

 Here we have disabled fuzzy matching.  I believe Paul Pomes has done the
same at uiuc.edu.  It just causes too many problems.  It is too easy, for
example, for a mistyped address to fuzzy match the wrong person, thereby
"publishing" information which was meant to be private.  It would be safer
for you to have an alias

	fred.blogs:	fb23

so that mail to Fred.Blogs still gets to fb23.  In that case the aliasing
and forwarding for fb23 will still work.

 But, if you still want to use the fuzzy matching, here is another approach.
Try using Chip Salzenberg's 'deliver' package as a replacement for /bin/mail,
and then use the "aliasing" features of deliver.  This moves a level of 
aliasing to a point beyond where the fuzzy matching is complete.

-- 
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  Neil W. Rickert, Computer Science               <rickert@cs.niu.edu>
  Northern Illinois Univ.
  DeKalb, IL 60115                                   +1-815-753-6940