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umlauts with lmtp delivery break html

From: Aleksander Kamenik (aleksanderkrediidiinfo.ee)
Date: Tue Dec 11 2007 - 11:20:34 CST

Hi,

I have two very similarly setup servers, where postfix delivers email
via LMTP to dspam which in turn delivers to dbmail also via lmtp.

For testing purposes I skipped dspam, so the setup I'll be describing is
postfix --- lmtp via transport maps --> dbmail-lmtpd. It didn't matter
whether I used inet or unix sockets.

One server is SLES10SP1 (postfix postfix-2.2.9-10.23) and the other is
OpenSUSE 10.3 (postfix postfix-2.4.5-20).

The problem occurs using the newer 2.4.5 series postfix, not the older
2.2.9. I have made sure that the problem is caused by postfix and not
dbmail (or dspam) to which postfix delivers by having postfix connect to
the other mail servers dbmail lmtp service. And the other way around too.

I also created a local linux account, where the mail was delivered to a
file using aliases.db. The problem did not occur there, so it must be
something with postfix and LMTP delivery.

The problem is that some emails with HTML in mime parts get "screwed
up", odd chars are replaced with a equal sign and their hex value.

Following is an example, the html's <body> part. In both examples the
deliveries were done to the same lmtp service via same inet socket)

Using postfix-2.2.9-10.23 (SLES10SP1):

.snip.
<body background="cid:part1.01050407.08090501krediidiinfo.ee"
  bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">
.snip.
EeÜsti
.snip.

Using postfix-2.4.5-20 (Opensuse 10.3):

.snip.
<body background=3D"cid:part1.03010503.01070305krediidiinfo.ee"
  bgcolor=3D"#ffffff" text=3D"#000000">
.snip.
Ee=DCsti
.snip.

This screw up only happens when there are umlauts in the MIME part. When
I send the mail without the Ü in Eesti, the body definition's equal
signs are not replaced with an equal sign the and hex value.

Obviously HTML parsers don't like this. The above broken body definition
makes the background yellow instead of white and Thunderbird is even
unable to send the email (when edited in "Edit as New" mode).

Has this issue been reported or fixed in 2.4.6?

Regards,

--
Aleksander Kamenik
system administrator
+372 6659 649
aleksanderkrediidiinfo.ee

Krediidiinfo AS
http://www.krediidiinfo.ee/