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Postfix - Virtualmin - Server error: '501 5.1.3 Bad recipient address syntax' - due to outlook tags <> invalid email format ?

A user of my mail server recently had some recipients of a message returned.

He received this message from my server.

The following recipient(s) cannot be reached:

       'redacted@civ.utoronto.ca' on 8/20/2014 10:35 AM
             Server error: '501 5.1.3 Bad recipient address syntax'

       'redacted@wlu.ca' on 8/20/2014 10:35 AM
             Server error: '501 5.1.3 Bad recipient address syntax'

       'redacted@uoguelph.ca' on 8/20/2014 10:35 AM
             Server error: '501 5.1.3 Bad recipient address syntax'

       'redacted@uoguelph.ca' on 8/20/2014 10:35 AM
             Server error: '501 5.1.3 Bad recipient address syntax'

       'redacted@eng.uwo.ca' on 8/20/2014 10:35 AM
             Server error: '501 5.1.3 Bad recipient address syntax'
The other recipients were delivered successfully. On the server-side, Postfix logged:

Aug 20 14:35:17 darwin postfix/smtpd[63431]: warning: Illegal address syntax from 
    or087.uwaterloo.ca[129.97.9.53] in RCPT command: <'redacted@uwo.ca'>
Aug 20 14:35:17 darwin postfix/smtpd[63431]: warning: Illegal address syntax from 
 or087.uwaterloo.ca[129.97.9.53] in RCPT command: <'redacted@wlu.ca'>
Aug 20 14:35:17 darwin postfix/smtpd[63431]: warning: Illegal address syntax from 
 or087.uwaterloo.ca[129.97.9.53] in RCPT command: <'redacted@eng.uwo.ca'>
Aug 20 14:35:17 darwin postfix/smtpd[63431]: warning: Illegal address syntax from 
 or087.uwaterloo.ca[129.97.9.53] in RCPT command: <'redacted@grandriver.ca'>

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Asked on 10/25/15, 9:06 AM
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The problem is that these particular addresses were literally enclosed by apostrophes.

I don't know why the user's client (Outlook) misformatted these addresses.

He confirmed that he did not copy them from another application or change anything at his end.

To fix the problem I configured Postfix to filter and rewrite the address when it is sending commands to other MTAs.

I added to main.cf:

# Strange filtering
smtpd_command_filter = pcre:/usr/local/etc/postfix/command_filter
and created the file command_filter:
# Fix malformed emails that are surrounded in single quotes.
/^RCPT\s+TO:\s*<'([^[:space:]]+)'>(.*)/     RCPT TO:<$1>$2
This fixed this oddity in which RCPT TO commands were not RFC 821-compliant.

Hint for others: on my Debian machine I had to install the package "postfix-pcre" to enable PCRE maps with Postfix.

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Answered on 10/25/15, 9:07 AM
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Asked: 10/25/15, 9:06 AM
Seen: 4232 times
Last updated: 10/25/15, 9:07 AM