[Mailman-Users] Problems creating a list

[Harald Meland]

[Christopher Lindsey]

> > If this was done (properly) by design, I guess "newlist" should insist
> > on all-lowercase list names, though.
> 
> Just to be a pain, I'll add my $.00001 worth (advice comes cheap -- it would
> be $.02 if I provided a solution).

:-)

> Anyhow, RFC 822 says that the localpart of an addr-spec is comprised of
> either an atom or quoted-string. 
> 
>    atom = 1+<any CHAR except specials, SPACE, and CTLs>
>    specials = ()<>@,;:\".[]
>    quoted-string = basically the same, but spaces allowed
>                    if enclosed in quotes

... but this does not imply that Mailman _has_ to allow creation of
Mailman lists with non-lowercased names.

> That means that upper case is fine and dandy...  So the best way to
> probably handle this is to allow the list to be created with mixed cases
> (or all upper), but then translate this internally to lowercase for all
> functions using the list name.  This way your passing the buck to the
> MTA instead.

I wasn't really talking about case trouble with the MTA (although the
best MTA-independent fix for such problems would probably be for
Mailman to insist on using lowercase-only aliases -- I know that
e.g. Exim by default lowercases any localpart before looking it up in
an alias file (although that behaviour can be configured)).

I was talking about the inconsistent behaviour presently in Mailman --
"newlist" allows creation of mixed-case lists, while at least the
"admin" cgi-bin script lowercases any list name it is given before
trying to get the list object.  Presently Mailman.MailList("test")
could fail even if there is a Mailman.MailList("Test").

If we're willing to accept that some people have a legitimate need for
mixed-case list names, your solution would be the Right Thing.  The
alternative solution of making all of Mailman case aware
(i.e. treating "Test" and "test" as two separate lists) would be
confusing to the vast majority of Mailman users.

> Otherwise are you guaranteed that all addresses will be translated to lower
> case when they come in?

In general: No, you can't.

However, if someone have set their MTA up to _not_ lowercase addresses
before looking them up in the alias file, I'd say they deserve
whatever they get when someone tries posting to a differently cased
name of a list.  They sure can't expect Mailman to put _every_ case
permutation of all Mailman address in the alias file...

> sendmail does this with any aliases, but what if a list is running
> out of an account with '+' addressing instead (I know, it's a
> stretch).

As I said: If the MTA isn't doing "caseless" alias lookups, then all
bets are off.

> That said, I don't know why people insist on mixing case in their addresses. 
> It just confuses people...

Exactly.  But saying "Mailman doesn't support non-lowercased list
names" might be a bit harsh, right?
-- 
Harald