Xref: utzoo comp.mail.misc:2907 comp.mail.sendmail:1352
Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uunet!cucstud!c3pe!charles
From: charles@c3pe.UUCP (Charles Green)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc,comp.mail.sendmail
Subject: What is the most acceptable format for "firstname lastname" localpart?
Message-ID: <8349@c3pe.UUCP>
Date: 9 Feb 90 03:11:25 GMT
Reply-To: charles@c3pe.UUCP (charles Green)
Distribution: usa
Organization: C3 Inc., Herndon, VA
Lines: 28

I'm setting up a convenient name structure for users on one of our subdomains.
For simplicity, I felt the easiest way to allow fullnames would be to have

	firstname.lastname@sub.dom.ain

look in /usr/lib/aliases to see what "firstname.lastname" mapped to.
However, one of our 'sendmail' programs complains about me trying to alias
"non-local" names when I run 'newaliases', while the other happily accepts
the name and maps it as desired.

I've also discovered that some other hosts have some trouble passing mail
addressed in this manner to us; in particular, "first.last%sub.dom" fails
while "first.last@sub.dom" succeeds.

What all this means to me is that, even though this construction is legal
without quoting the local part according to RFC 822, some trouble can be
expected in the actual implementation.

So, I ask the net if there is an accepted "standard" for specifying full
names in the localpart of an address.  Is it "first last"@dom.ain ?
"first.last"@dom.ain ?  first_last@dom.ain?

Thanks for any and all comments; I'll be glad to summarize.

	-Charles Green, charles_green@ct.c3.com (for the time being...)
-- 
"IOUT should never be allowed to equal ILIMIT, even for a microsecond."
charles@C3.COM	{decuac.dec.com,cucstud}!c3pe!charles	ex::!echo Boo: