[rt-users] Decoding quoted mail addresses in RT mailgate

[Ruslan Zakirov]

We need MIME message generated from Outlook that represents problem to
add to the test suite.

On 3/21/06, Philipp Niemann <niemann at dimdi.de> wrote:
> Hello!
>
> Though I searched the past four month of listarchive for something
> similar, I haven't found anything near. Hear this:
>
> We have RT Version 3.4.4 installed on a Debian/GNU Linux Release sarge
> with modperl and apache1.
>
> Some of our users have MS Outlook as MUA. Our realname policy for email
> is: "surname, given name" <email.address at dimdi.de>
>
> Everything is just fine as long as the name of the user doesn't contain
> any special chars like German umlauts or such. In case of a special char
> in the surname or given name, Outlook encodes the From header according
> to RFC. The problem is that Outlook (wrongly) encodes the quotation marks
> into the From address, too.
>
> When such an encoded From Address arrives at RT mailgateway, the
> software does the following (I added Umlauts to the names for accuracy):
>
> 1) Realise the From is quoted
> 2) Start with a Quotation mark: "
> 3) Decode Address: "surnäme, given näme"
> 4) End encoded string with quotation mark: "
> 5) Add mail address itself
>
> Result:
> ""surnäme, given näme"" <email.address at dimdi.de>
>
> Which in turn results in Autoreply Mail from RT destined to User "" and
> User "" -- and RT not realizing the (existing) User. The resulting ticket
> is listed with Requestor "".
>
> Wrong behaviour. My own MUA, mutt, decodes this stuff correctly,
> prepending a backslash to the encoded quotation marks after decoding,
> resulting in the correctly decoded From address like this:
>
> "\"surnäme, given näme\"" <email.address at dimdi.de>
>
> I tried to figure out which perl module is the right to file a bug
> against. I don't think this is RT itself as RT uses lots of perl mods to
> decode email. Might be Mail::Address, right?
>
> As I don't have any hope of getting rid of Outlook I would greatly
> appreciate hints on the right module or ideas for a workaround.
>
> I have some tcpdump sessions with very detailed information about the
> issue. Feel free to ask for further details if needed.
>
> Regards,
> Philipp
> --
> Philipp Niemann                                       DIMDI
> Abteilung D / AG D4
> Peripherie / UNIX-Systembetreuer     Waisenhausgasse 36-38a
> Tel. : 0221/4724-281                            50676 Koeln

--
Best regards, Ruslan.