Description

Moin somehow forgot my login, and I could not remember the password that I've not had to use for ages.

So I tried to use the password recovery on the page UserPreferences, and instead of sending my account info, I got this message:

{u'': (501, '5.1.3 Bad recipient address syntax')}

Clear message

This is not a bug, but a usability problem.

You thought you had to enter your wiki user name to get your stuff mailed. But you have to enter your email address to do this (and this is documented right below on the UserPreferences page!).

Your task is to fix this issue by also accepting username. You have to provide source code diffs for moin 1.6 and 1.7.

This task needs about 12h of work and has to be completed within 10 days.

Steps to reproduce

1. Go to the UserPreferences page

2. Enter your username in the Name field (or someone else's username, or make one up)

3. Click the Mail me my account data button

The above error message will appear, probably in place of something like "Account info sent ...". Since I never received the email, I'm assuming the error message is indicating that there's something wrong with the email address and so it can't send the mail. ???

Example

Component selection

• general

Details

This Wiki

Workaround

None

Discussion

So the only thing we can improve here is to also accept the wiki user name.

• Oops, and thanks... Maybe a better solution is to detect the problem and correct the user (without involving you ). The current message is rather unhelpful. If the username were accepted as well, would that leave registered users vulnerable to attack? I know that using the email address is pretty safe, since they are not publicly exposed.)

  • Well, the only "attack" is that you could send them lots of password reminder mails. I am not sure this really is a problem...
• Right, which amounts to spam. If Moin doesn't have something to prevent rapid-fire reset requests (surge suppression?), it wouldn't be difficult to generate such attacks. May never be a problem, and could be dealt with later if it does, I suppose.

Plan

• Priority:
• Assigned to:
• Status: usability problem, can be improved by also accepting username

CategoryMoinMoinBug