mail not work

Malcolm Kay malcolm.kay at internode.on.net
Sat Jul 12 17:18:41 UTC 2008


On Sun, 13 Jul 2008 02:34 am, Malcolm Kay wrote:
> On Fri, 11 Jul 2008 10:00 am, EdwardKing wrote:
> > I use mailx command,such as Tom to Kate,I like following
> > command: $mail Kate
> > Subject:Hello
> > Hello world
> > (press Ctrl+D)
> > EOT
> >
> > Then I use user Kate to login,and check mail,
> > $mail
> > No mail for Kate
> >
> > Why I can't receive letter? where is wrong?
>
> Perhaps something to do with using uppercase in login names:
> From adduser(8) man page:
>      username
>              Login name.  The user name is restricted to
> whatever pw(8) will accept.  Generally this means it may
> contain only lowercase char- acters or digits but cannot begin
> with the `-' character.  Maxi- mum length is 16 characters. 
> The reasons for this limit are his- torical.  Given that
> people have traditionally wanted to break this limit for
> aesthetic reasons, it has never been of great importance to
> break such a basic fundamental parameter in UNIX. You can
> change UT_NAMESIZE in <utmp.h> and recompile the world; people
> have done this and it works, but you will have problems with
> any precompiled programs, or source that assumes the 8-char-
> acter name limit, such as NIS.  The NIS protocol mandates an
> 8-character username.  If you need a longer login name for
> e-mail addresses, you can define an alias in
> /etc/mail/aliases.
>

Addendum:
Names in "To:" addresses can generally be in any case and still
be received by the user with the corresponding lowercase login name.

For example mail sent to 'MALCOLM' on my machine it ends up in my mail box 
with login name 'malcolm'. So somewhere (sendmail?) the name is translated 
to all lowercase. I expect that sendmail is trying to deliver your mail
to some undefined user named 'kate' -- not to 'Kate'.

Malcolm


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