Date: Sat, 23 Sep 1995 09:38:12 +0200 (MET DST) From: J Wunsch <j@uriah.heep.sax.de> To: freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: rmail and brain-dead mail systems .. patch enclosed Message-ID: <199509230738.JAA17272@uriah.heep.sax.de> In-Reply-To: <43vj8q$iq$1@haywire.DIALix.COM> from "Peter Wemm" at Sep 23, 95 08:10:02 am
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As Peter Wemm wrote:
>
> >As you can see, there's 34 times "joerg_wunsch" in the envelope
> >address. Pretty much useless, don't you think?
>
> >And that's with the stock rmail(1), of course. :)
>
> Ahh, yes.. but those 34 joerg_wunsch addresses were probably from
> cvs-committers, ...
No, for example the message i'm replying to does also contain such a
"joerg_wunsch" in the From_ line:
~From joerg_wunsch Sat Sep 23 06:20:53 1995
~Received: (from uucp@localhost) by uriah.heep.sax.de (8.6.12/8.6.9) with \
~ UUCP id GAA16983 for freebsd-current@uriah.heep.sax.de; Sat, 23 Sep 1995 \
~ 06:20:53 +0200
[serveral Received's]
~To: freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG
~Date: 23 Sep 1995 08:10:02 +0800
~From: peter@haywire.dialix.com (Peter Wemm)
[...]
~Subject: Re: rmail and brain-dead mail systems .. patch enclosed
~Sender: owner-current@FreeBSD.ORG
The only hint to the actual sender is the Sender: header. As the
first Receveived header shows, the messages wasn't even directed to
joerg_wunsch, but to freebsd-current@uriah.heep.sax.de instead.
The From_ line (also refered to as the "Unix From line") is not part
of RFC822. In particular, UUCP mailers tend to trash this line, so
it's entirely useless. Sendmail immediately strips it from each
incoming message and discards it. (Look into the mail queue, you'll
find a header and a data file for each queue entry, and the header
file does not include this line.)
Since the "envelope" addresses are often bogus, they should IMHO not
be used. Instead, RFC822 says:
4.4.4. AUTOMATIC USE OF FROM / SENDER / REPLY-TO
For systems which automatically generate address lists for
replies to messages, the following recommendations are made:
o The "Sender" field mailbox should be sent notices of
any problems in transport or delivery of the original
messages. If there is no "Sender" field, then the
"From" field mailbox should be used.
o The "Sender" field mailbox should NEVER be used
automatically, in a recipient's reply message.
o If the "Reply-To" field exists, then the reply should
go to the addresses indicated in that field and not to
the address(es) indicated in the "From" field.
o If there is a "From" field, but no "Reply-To" field,
the reply should be sent to the address(es) indicated
in the "From" field.
Sometimes, a recipient may actually wish to communicate with
the person that initiated the message transfer. In such
cases, it is reasonable to use the "Sender" address.
...
I think, sendmail does it this way.
vacation(1) is the last program i know that does not comply to RFC822.
It should probably be rewritten to do a better job. I cannot use it
in its current form, and last time i've been using it, i've put a Perl
wrapper around that generated the beloved From_ line out of the RFC822
headers...
--
cheers, J"org
joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de -- http://www.sax.de/~joerg/
Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-)
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