Subject: [EAI] Re: IMA utf8 address initial implementation issues

From: "YAO Jiankang" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 May 2006 15:56:55 +0800

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Harald Alvestrand" <[email-masked]>
Sent: Tuesday, May 23, 2006 3:06 PM
Subject: Re: IMA utf8 address initial implementation issues

> Yao,
> 
> this is exactly as expected, and it is good that you test.
> question: did you implement any part of the SMTP extension logic?

still not, we hope finished the initial version before next montreal IETF meeting.

> 
> How many lines of code did you have to change in vpopmail to get it to
> accept utf-8 chars?

very simple.
only replace the function "is_username_valid( char *user )"of vpopmail.c using the following function:

int is_username_valid( char *user )

{

  while(*user != 0 ) {

   /* if ( (*user == 33) ||

         (*user == 35 ) ||

         (*user == 36 ) ||

         (*user == 38 ) ||

         (*user == 39 ) ||

         (*user == 42 ) || (*user == 43) ||

         (*user >= 45 && *user <= 57) ||

         (*user == 61 ) || (*user == 63 ) ||

         (*user >= 65 && *user <= 90) ||

         (*user >= 94 && *user <= 126 ) ) {*/

      ++user;

   /* } else {

      return(VA_ILLEGAL_USERNAME);

    }*/

  }

> 
> Were there any problems with corrupted utf-8 chars?

sometimes, some utf-8 characters can not be correctly displayed by some mail client software.
actually,if we use the email client software:evolution (http://www.gnome.org/projects/evolution/), if we set outgoing message's character coding as utf-8, we do not need do any changes to qmail source code (only do some changes to vpopmail.c in vpopmail).  those two qmail SMTP servers can exchange the email message directly using the email address format utf-8@AsciiDomain. 

> 
> I think this can be usefully shared with the EAI list, it is good to
> know the size of the effort.
> 

the size of the effort to change some source code to support EAI is not very big.

so maybe EAI problem is not that hard than we originally imaged.

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: YAO Jiankang 

  Subject: IMA utf8 address initial implementation issues

  Dear all,

  We set 2  email test servers on 2 linux machines using the open source software: ucspi-tcp-0.88+qmail1.03+mysql+vpopmail. One with the domain name: test1.qmail.asrc.cn; the other with the domain name: m1.qmail.asrc.cn. We do a simple change to make vpopmail allow using the utf-8 characters. now in both machines, we can use [email-masked], [email-masked] respectly.
    now we create two email addresses based on chinese characrters based on utf-8:
          [utf-8ChineseCharactersUserNameA]@test1.qmail.asrc.cn, [utf-8ChineseCharactersUserB]@m1.qmail.asrc.cn
         we added a function in qmail which transformed the email address to utf-8 format, these two email addresses can successfully exchange the email information. it means that [utf-8ChineseCharactersUserNameA]@test1.qmail.asrc.cn can send message to  [utf-8ChineseCharactersUserB]@m1.qmail.asrc.cn which received it successfully;[utf-8ChineseCharactersUserB]@m1.qmail.asrc.cn can send message to [utf-8ChineseCharactersUserNameA]@test1.qmail.asrc.cn which received it successfully.
      but when I send a email to [email-masked] using [utf-8ChineseCharactersUserNameA]@test1.qmail.asrc.cn, it failed and got no response from hotmail.com or test1.qmail.asrc.cn. maybe this email was regarded as rubbish by hotmail.com.

     so from the above testing, the conclusion may be:

    if both sender and receiver MTA support IMA, that is no problem.
    when receiver MTA does not support IMA headers and the sender still use the IMA headers or address, the email will  be easily regarded as the rubbish by relay server or receiver server.
    can this test help to design our utf-8 email header or framework or anything else? 
     
  Thanks.  

  YAO Jiankang
  Best Regards
  Tel:86-10-58813007
  Fax:86-10-62559892
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