Unicode Exceptions

Most of the EFT interface supports Unicode characters. (Refer to Unicode File Transfers for details. The table below lists exceptions to Unicode support in EFT.

Area

Storage

(Internal Representation on Disk)

GUI

(Allowed and Displayed)

Usage

(When EFT or SAT uses the value)

Remarks

General

All domain (host) fields (SAT and EFT)

Unicode

(stored in Punycode in SAT)

Unicode

7-bit ASCII

IDN (Internationalization of Domain Names) support by converting Unicode to Punycode upon use. From a user (presentation) perspective and EFT’s internal representation, it will be Unicode.

All e-mail address fields (SAT and EFT)

Unicode

7-bit ASCII

7-bit ASCII

Conversion to Unicode for storage, but downgrade on usage. No risk/potential for loss of fidelity, as all chars limited to <128 ASCII.

You can paste in Punycode ASCII characters directly for the domain portion if you must have Unicode domains for e-mail addresses.

SMTP settings (username + password)

Unicode

7-bit ASCII

7-bit ASCII

Conversion to Unicode for storage, but downgrade on usage. No risk/potential for loss of fidelity, as all chars limited in GUI/usage to <128 ASCII.

Installer

8-bit ASCII

8-bit ASCII

8-bit ASCII

See Installer – ASCII ONLY below for potential problems

Keys and PGP

SSL CN field

8-bit ASCII

8-bit ASCII

8-bit ASCII

RFC allows for Unicode but OpenSSL handles the value as ASCII

SSL priv. key pass

8-bit ASCII

8-bit ASCII

8-bit ASCII

Passwords stored as octets sequence using same encoding as UI (ASCII)

SSH priv. key pass

8-bit ASCII

8-bit ASCII

8-bit ASCII

Passwords stored as octets sequence using same encoding as UI (ASCII)

PGP priv. key pass

8-bit ASCII

8-bit ASCII

8-bit ASCII

Veridis limitation. Passwords stored as octets sequence, 8-bit ASCII.

PGP filename and pathnames

n/a

n/a

8-bit ASCII

Unicode filenames will be supported, but the will be temporarily converted to ASCII.

PGP key name

8-bit ASCII

8-bit ASCII

8-bit ASCII

PGP module does not support Unicode

PGP public and private key ring paths

8-bit ASCII

8-bit ASCII

8-bit ASCII

PGP module does not support Unicode

RSA

RSA Conf.reg path

8-bit ASCII

8-bit ASCII

8-bit ASCII

RSA dll only takes ASCII path values

RSA usernames and passwords

Unicode

Unicode

8-bit ASCII

RSA does not support Unicode. We will downgrade to ASCII on usage. Potential loss of fidelity resulting in failed authentication attempts.

ARM

ARM report content

Unicode (audited)

8-bit ASCII

(reported)

8-bit ASCII

(reported)

Loss of fidelity for UTF-8 chars that don’t match local code page for ext. ASCII. The VSReport Designer does not support Unicode.

AS2

AS2 outbound

n/a

n/a

8-bit ASCII

AS2 does not support Unicode encoded filenames. We can’t downgrade to ASCII as we would be violating Drummond, thus we will simply disallow and log error.

AS2 inbound

n/a

n/a

8-bit ASCII

AS2 does not support Unicode encoded filenames. Unlike offloads, EFT inbound can’t detect whether the incoming file is Unicode encoded or not, thus we will always hand the file off to the AS2 component, with potential for mixed results. The outcome will be: a) an ASCII encoded filename, b) a failed transaction, or c) an ASCII encoded unique filename. Reference the AS2 Inbound Operations Use Case Cheat Sheet for additional guidance.

RADIUS

RADIUS NAS ID

Unicode

8-bit ASCII

8-bit ASCII

EFT 6.4 used 8-bit ASCII. EFT 6.5 will represent as UNICODE strings (internally) and then downgrade to 8-bit ASCII on use. Also limited to ASCII in UI.

RADIUS special cases

RADIUS shared secret

Unicode

Unicode

UTF-8

RFC says nothing about RADIUS password. EFT 6.4 used 8-bit ASCII. EFT 6.5 uses UTF-8. This difference (between earlier versions of EFT and version 6.5 and the resulting potential loss of fidelity is why this item is included on this list (even though it is UTF-8)

RADIUS usernames

Unicode

Unicode

UTF-8

RADIUS usernames and the shared secret can be UTF-8 strings.  

HTTP

EFT client action HTTP/S credentials

Unicode

n/a

Base64 encoding of UTF-8 string

 

EFT client action HTTP/S Proxy

Unicode

n/a

Base64 encoding of UTF-8 string

  

AS2 Inbound Operations

AS2 client compliance with RFC 2184

File encoding of source file on disk

Resulting change to file encoding in transit

EFT treatment (resulting encoding and/or loss of fidelity)

Standard AS2 client. Does not comply with RFC 2184. It relies on filename=<text encoded in ASCII>

NOTE: Majority of known AS2 clients

ASCII

ASCII

(no change)

Filename integrity maintained. No loss of encoding fidelity. Normal use case. This is essentially 7 and 8-bit ASCII transfers when working with standard ASCII only AS2 clients works perfect.

Unicode

ASCII – down converts to "??????" or nonsense characters.

/n component will fail to process because "????" is an  invalid filename. The transfer will result in a failure to write to disk. EFT must log this as an error in eft.log.

AS2 client is compliant with RFC2184. That is,  uses filename*= utf-8''<text encoded in UTF-8>

ASCII

ASCII

(no change)

Filename integrity is NOT maintained. /n component will process but will convert the filename to a unique 8-bit ASCII filename. However, there won’t be a loss of encoding fidelity.

EFT will log as warning that filename was changed.

Unicode

Unicode

(no change)

Filename integrity is NOT maintained. /n component will process but will convert the filename to a unique 8-bit ASCII filename; There is also a loss of encoding fidelity as it is down converted to ASCII. EFT will log as warning that filename was changed.

AS2 Other/Miscellaneous Limitations

AS2 ID (identifier)

ASCII only

ASCII only

EFT displays a message indicating that Unicode is not allowed.

Q: Why is there no AS2 outbound cheat sheet?

A: EFT controls outbound and disallows UTF-8 encoded filenames from being transferred (see main exceptions above). EFT is more lenient on the inbound side, depending on the use cases described above.

PGP SDA Exceptions

If source filename is:

If source path is:

Resulting SDA name:

If extract path is:

Result

Unicode

n/a

n/a

n/a

Will fail to generate SDA

ASCII

Unicode

ASCII

ASCII

Works perfect. Everything preserved

ASCII

ASCII

Unicode

ASCII

Unicode

Will fail to extract

ASCII

Installer – ASCII ONLY

EFT’s installer is not Unicode compliant. You cannot define Unicode values in the installer for app data path, admin name, etc. The values can be changed in EFT, but with serious ramifications.

Below is a list of ramifications and mitigation strategies if you were to install EFT and then change certain values in EFT to Unicode, and then run the SAT installer or a future EFT installer (upgrade).

Value

EFT Installer

SAT Installer

Customer support mitigation strategy

Admin credentials

No affect if changed as subsequent installs or upgrades do not query or use this value.

If you install EFT, then modify admin name to Unicode, then attempts to install SAT, you will NOT be able to connect to EFT using the admin name with Unicode credentials.

Change admin credentials back to non-Unicode or create a separate admin account with COM privileges and then use that admin from SAT installer.

Site Name

No impact; EFT installer does not use.

SAT installer will not be able to display the Site name in the installer

Create a separate Site in EFT using ASCII only, then use that Site from the SAT installer. If necessary modify the SAT config xml to reflect the original Unicode Site name, but don’t forget to move all scripts and such from second (ASCII) Site over to the primary site (Unicode) or SAT won’t work properly.

ARM config

Can affect future upgrades to EFT;  user cannot enter Unicode values in fields during upgrade

No affect; SAT uses COM to communicate auditable changes to EFT

Do not use Unicode for ARM values. If you do, then future upgrades of EFT will not work (until our installer supports Unicode). You should change ARM values back to ASCII before performing an upgrade.

SMTP settings

No affect

SAT uses these values and will fail to write to config properly

Use only ASCII in EFT interfaces for SMTP values or use bogus values during SAT installation, then modify the config.xml to reflect the Unicode values after installation is complete and SAT is working.

App data path  (configurable value in EFT)

Future EFT upgrades will fail; the installer cannot retrieve the app data path if in Unicode

No affect/not used

Do not use Unicode characters for app data path. If necessary, change back to ASCII path (don’t forget to move all files over) then run EFT installer/upgrader.