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X-Authentication-Warning: slinky.cs.nyu.edu: pechtcha owned process doing -bs
Date: Mon, 24 May 2004 22:01:51 -0400 (EDT)
From: Igor Pechtchanski <pechtcha AT cs DOT nyu DOT edu>
Reply-To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
To: Ken Dibble <kdibble AT alltel DOT net>
cc: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Subject: Re: exim issue
In-Reply-To: <40AFA4EF.7040706@alltel.net>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0405242154000.15419@slinky.cs.nyu.edu>
References: <40AFA4EF DOT 7040706 AT alltel DOT net>
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On Sat, 22 May 2004, Ken Dibble wrote:

> I know this isn't a cygwin only problem, but my research has failed to
> produce an instance of this ever happening.
>
> Common sense says it is just more likely to happen in a NT/XP
> environment with cygwin.
>
> For reference, this is exim 4.32, downloaded last week.
>
> In the exim 4.32 source (spool_in.c) the following line causes an error
> condition if the user who instantiated the exim process has a space in
> their name.
>
> if (sscanf(CS big_buffer, "%s %ld %ld", originator, &uid, &gid) != 3)
>   goto SPOOL_FORMAT_ERROR;
>
> I'm sure a workaround is obvious, I just can't see it.

A proper workaround has already been posted, but the above is indeed a
rather fundamental bug in exim (or, rather, in the format of the exim
spool file)...  The problem is that exim uses a space as a separator for
the "UNAME UID GID" line, and space is a valid username character.  The
problem exists on other systems as well, but manifested itself on Cygwin
only because usernames with spaces are more common.  One solution is to
use an invalid username character as a separator (e.g., '|').  I doubt
there could be a Cygwin-specific fix, though, since that would make the
spool files incompatible across systems.
	Igor
-- 
				http://cs.nyu.edu/~pechtcha/
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     |,4-  ) )-,_. ,\ (  `'-'		Igor Pechtchanski, Ph.D.
    '---''(_/--'  `-'\_) fL	a.k.a JaguaR-R-R-r-r-r-.-.-.  Meow!

"I have since come to realize that being between your mentor and his route
to the bathroom is a major career booster."  -- Patrick Naughton

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