From owner-freebsd-current Sat Sep 23 01:14:24 1995 Return-Path: owner-current Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.6.12/8.6.6) id BAA15636 for current-outgoing; Sat, 23 Sep 1995 01:14:24 -0700 Received: from irz301.inf.tu-dresden.de (irz301.inf.tu-dresden.de [141.76.1.11]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.6.12/8.6.6) with ESMTP id BAA15624 for ; Sat, 23 Sep 1995 01:14:17 -0700 Received: from sax.sax.de by irz301.inf.tu-dresden.de (8.6.12/8.6.12-s1) with ESMTP id KAA04649 for ; Sat, 23 Sep 1995 10:14:11 +0200 Received: by sax.sax.de (8.6.11/8.6.12-s1) with UUCP id KAA12470 for freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG; Sat, 23 Sep 1995 10:14:11 +0200 Received: (from j@localhost) by uriah.heep.sax.de (8.6.12/8.6.9) id JAA17272 for freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG; Sat, 23 Sep 1995 09:38:13 +0200 From: J Wunsch Message-Id: <199509230738.JAA17272@uriah.heep.sax.de> Subject: Re: rmail and brain-dead mail systems .. patch enclosed To: freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Date: Sat, 23 Sep 1995 09:38:12 +0200 (MET DST) Reply-To: freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG In-Reply-To: <43vj8q$iq$1@haywire.DIALix.COM> from "Peter Wemm" at Sep 23, 95 08:10:02 am X-Phone: +49-351-2012 669 X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Content-Length: 3194 Sender: owner-current@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk 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. ;-)