Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!milano!bigtex!natinst!sequoia!dewey
From: dewey@sequoia.UUCP (Dewey Henize)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc
Subject: Re: aliasing everyone within an organization
Message-ID: <394@sequoia.UUCP>
Date: 19 Mar 89 06:37:13 GMT
References: <3498@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu> <421a3fa7.16e4b@rigel.UUCP>
Reply-To: dewey@sequoia.UUCP (Dewey Henize)
Organization: Home for Recalcitrant Hackers
Lines: 58

In article <421a3fa7.16e4b@rigel.UUCP> barriost@rigel.UUCP (Tim Barrios) writes:
}In article <3498@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu>, bob@kahala.hig.hawaii.edu (Bob Cunningham) writes:
}> I'm implementing, for an organization of several hundred people, a
}> scheme where everyone can potentially receive e-mail via standardized
}> ...
}> If you've already done (or thought of doing) something like this, I'd
}> like to hear how you treat:
}
}when migrating to a new computing/mail environment (700 Apollos running
}Unix mail), we spent a lot of time deciding on a user ID scheme that was
}consistent across all users.  the basic idea was that you should be able to
}send mail to someone if you know their name even if you don't know their
}user ID.  what we decided on was <last name><first initial>.  the only
}reason we went with the last name first was for sorting purposes.  in case
}of a conflict (many 'smith's or even 'robert smith'), the user can use a
}nick-name as the initial ('b' for bob) and/or an additional middle initial
}id necessary.  we find that this scheme makes it so that you can send mail
}to someone that you meet in a hallway or meeting at least 95% of the time.

Or you could instead just add a tool to allow folks to LOOK UP an address.
We did that here - we didn't want to get into the mold of 'last name,
initial, serial number, rank, etc :-), so we just built a little shell
that allows lookup.  No big deal, a couple people found it interesting
to play with, it works...

----
#!/bin/sh
#
#       extract possible names for mail from the passwd file.
#
if [ ${1}"test" = "test" ]; then
	echo "usage: whomail <list of names, addresses, or strings>"
	exit 0
fi
string="$1"
shift

while expr $# '>' 0 >/dev/null
        do
        string="$string|$1"
        shift
        done

ypcat passwd | sed -e "s/:[^:]*:[^:]*:[^:]*:/ - /" -e "s/:.*//" | \
        egrep "`echo $string | tr 'A-Z 'a-z'`"
----
obviously, if you aren't using YP, you replace the 'ypcat passwd' with what
you need (like 'cat /etc/passwd'), or whatever, but it allows lots of freedom
in names.

Dewey Henize

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|                   execu!dewey             Dewey Henize                      |
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