Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 02:05:19 +0200 From: Giorgos Keramidas <keramida@ceid.upatras.gr> To: "Gary W. Swearingen" <swear@attbi.com> Cc: Roman Neuhauser <neuhauser@bellavista.cz>, freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Find abandoned packages Message-ID: <20021126000519.GA66017@gothmog.gr> In-Reply-To: <ylisyl6wc5.syl@localhost.localdomain> References: <000801c2915e$be8907c0$6400a8c0@windows> <9eel9eaber.l9e@localhost.localdomain> <20021125091339.GR77198@freepuppy.bellavista.cz> <tpfztp8m6a.ztp@localhost.localdomain> <20021125214747.GB667@gothmog.gr> <ylisyl6wc5.syl@localhost.localdomain>
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On 2002-11-25 15:52, "Gary W. Swearingen" <swear@attbi.com> wrote: > Giorgos Keramidas <keramida@ceid.upatras.gr> writes: > > It is also true though, that flawed mail clients can push down into > > the connection to their outgoing SMTP server messages that do not have > > proper headers to allow the server to parse and convert the 8-bit > > characters correctly. This is often cause by either a) bugs in the > > mail client software, or b) misconfigured clients. > > I thought SMTP mail servers didn't touch the body of messages. One mail > client encodes stuff via MIME protocols to 7-bit data which it places in > the body, servers pass it around (changing headers), and another client > decodes the 7-bit body via MIME. You seem to imply that servers mess > with the body. Why would it need to? Mind explaining? They shouldn't "mess" with it, unless told to. You're right. I was referring to the way input characters are treated by the program that implements the SMTP service. If the program makes stupid assumptions about the size of character data, and uses data types in C like `char' instead of `int' then it's not just the client's fault when 8-bit data get mangled. > > Outlook is infamous for its habit of sending 8-bit characters > > unencoded in MIME messages that lack proper Content-Type: headers. > > The result is rather interesting to look upon, when the message passes > > through multiple SMTP servers, with different settings each. > > I didn't realize that the other poster was referring to MIME mail > (partially because the message I complained about didn't use MIME). > Yes, I've seen really messed up MIME mail. But are you sure that the > 8-bit data was put there by SMTP servers, or by the receiving client > which has been confused by MSFT-errant headers or by the MSFT client > that didn't properly 7-bit-encode it to begin with? It's usually the sending clients that don't properly encode messages, and assume that the receiving end will Know What To Do(TM). To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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