Couple of Questons about Account Aliases in 6.0

[soxfan]

We just upgraded our Zimbra installation from version 5.0.20 to 6.0.5, and now I've got a couple of questions about account aliases. For background, just about all our users have at least one alias defined which ties their log-in on our ERP system (typically the user's three initials) to their main email account (typically the user's first initial+last name).

1. When doing address auto-completion from the (internal) GAL when I start typing a user's first name only their primary account shows up in the auto-complete. Similarly if I start typing the user's last name only the primary account is displayed. However, if I type a combination of letters which matches the user's alias the alias does show up in the auto-complete. I don't think this was the behavior in version 5. I seem to think that the account aliases never showed up. At this point at least, I'm impartial to the change in behavior, but I'm just wondering if this is the way things are intended in version 6. Or perhaps I am just spacing out and this was the way things worked all the time.

2. I've got one user (at least that I've found so far) whose alias does show up in auto-completion when I start typing either their first or last name. I can't for the life of me figure out what's different about this account. I've been trying to compare the output of 'zmprov ga' for this user to other users, but so far I'm not seeing anything jump out at me. Anyone have any ideas on what could be causing this, and/or how I can "fix" it?

Thanks,
John

[bdial]

Originally Posted by soxfan

We just upgraded our Zimbra installation from version 5.0.20 to 6.0.5, and now I've got a couple of questions about account aliases. For background, just about all our users have at least one alias defined which ties their log-in on our ERP system (typically the user's three initials) to their main email account (typically the user's first initial+last name).

1. When doing address auto-completion from the (internal) GAL when I start typing a user's first name only their primary account shows up in the auto-complete. Similarly if I start typing the user's last name only the primary account is displayed. However, if I type a combination of letters which matches the user's alias the alias does show up in the auto-complete. I don't think this was the behavior in version 5. I seem to think that the account aliases never showed up. At this point at least, I'm impartial to the change in behavior, but I'm just wondering if this is the way things are intended in version 6. Or perhaps I am just spacing out and this was the way things worked all the time.

I'm still on 5.0.21, just tested this and it autocompletes from gal on account aliases as well.

2. I've got one user (at least that I've found so far) whose alias does show up in auto-completion when I start typing either their first or last name. I can't for the life of me figure out what's different about this account. I've been trying to compare the output of 'zmprov ga' for this user to other users, but so far I'm not seeing anything jump out at me. Anyone have any ideas on what could be causing this, and/or how I can "fix" it?

Thanks,
John

do they have a middle initial? could it be this Bug 44328 – GAL autocomplete fails when middle name isn't specified

[soxfan]

Thanks BDial...

I'm still on 5.0.21, just tested this and it autocompletes from gal on account aliases as well.

So, are you saying you are seeing the same behavior I'm describing for version 6, or are your aliases also showing up when you search by first or last name? Because I'm pretty sure in version 5 when I searched for a name the alias did not show up. I'm just not sure about matching on a full or partial hit to the alias itself. I know there has been a lot of back and forth through the years and versions about alias behavior. Some of the discussion can be found in bug 14919. There may have even been a setting on the domain or account level that had to be set through a 'zmprov' command to hide the aliases.

do they have a middle initial? could it be this Bug 44328 – GAL autocomplete fails when middle name isn't specified

Nope, don't think its this bug. I don't use middle initials on any of my accounts.

Thanks again,
John

[fcash]

All of our users have accounts <firstinitail><lastname>. And they all have aliases <firstname>.<lastname>.

Auto-complete in TO:/CC:/BCC: fields never shows the aliases. Even if I type in "freddie.cash", the alias never shows. Only the normal account address/name shows up in the list.

(Yes, sending to the alias address by manually typing it in will add it to the local addressbook, allowing for auto-complete.)
We are using Zimbra NE 5.0.13.

[soxfan]

Auto-complete in TO:/CC:/BCC: fields never shows the aliases. Even if I type in "freddie.cash", the alias never shows. Only the normal account address/name shows up in the list.

This is the behavior I remember with 5.0.x

(Yes, sending to the alias address by manually typing it in will add it to the local addressbook, allowing for auto-complete.)

In my case it is definitely not the local address book kicking in.

Just to clarify / reiterate the behavior I am now seeing I will provide an example. We have a user named John Doe, with an email address of jdoe@mydomain.com and an alias of jxd@mydomain.com. I start composing a new message and in the "To:" field I start typing John. Only one listing comes up for this user: "John Doe" <jdoe@mydomain.com>. Similarly, if I start typing Doe only the one (same) listing shows for this user. However, if by chance I start typing jxd I do see the listing as follows: "John Doe" <jxd@mydomain.com>.

Is this a bad thing? I don't know yet. At this point I don't see the harm in having the aliases show up this way. However, I do think that something has changed between versions 5 and 6. I'm just trying to determine if this is a bug or the intended behavior with version 6.

Thanks,
John

[bdial]

it's definately the behavior in 5.0.21

i just added a random asdf123@mydomain.com alias to my account

started typing my name, only my main address came up

started typing asd and my full name with the asdf123@mydomain.com autocompleted from gal

[soxfan]

Originally Posted by bdial

it's definately the behavior in 5.0.21

i just added a random asdf123@mydomain.com alias to my account

started typing my name, only my main address came up

started typing asd and my full name with the asdf123@mydomain.com autocompleted from gal

Thanks. Maybe I just never noticed it before and only saw it now because I am researching issue #2 from my original post where one user's alias is definitely showing up when it shouldn't be.

John