🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1g699sINN4at@uniwa.uwa.edu.au>, doug@psy.uwa.oz.au (Doug Robb) writes:
|> Can anybody explain to me what has happened to the
|> From line in the following message?
|> 
|> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
|> From dev-europe-request@durham.ac.uk Wed Dec  9 22:56:59 1992
|> Return-Path: <dev-europe-request@durham.ac.uk>
|> Received: from sun2.nsfnet-relay.ac.uk by psy.uwa.edu.au (4.1/SMI-4.1)
|> 	id AA05085; Wed, 9 Dec 92 22:56:49 WST
|> Message-Id: <9212091456.AA05085@psy.uwa.edu.au>
|> Via: uk.ac.durham; Wed, 9 Dec 1992 14:57:29 +0000
|> Received: from uk.ac.york.vaxa by durham.ac.uk; Wed, 9 Dec 92 14:53:28 GMT
|> Date: Wed, 9 Dec 92 14:33 GMT
|> From: charles hulme <CH1@VAXA.YORK.AC.UK>
|>       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^
|> etc
|> Instead of 
|> From: ch1@vaxa.york.ac.uk  (Charles Hume)
|>       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
|> This transposition of "real name" and return address is
|> stuffing up the 'r' (reply) facility of mail as the reply
|> is then addressed to local user charles etc.
|> I would blame my sendmail.cf but many if not most of the
|> messages we receive have the correct from lines and this problem
|> has only surfaced over the last month, as far as I can tell, and 
|> our mail server has been stable for about 2 years.
|> (sun OS 4.1.2, sun sendmail.cf for main machine, uses mx records)

Well, I would blame your mail software if it can't deal with the above From:
address. It may have been stable for 2 years but it's also been broken. RFC
822 says that a mailbox can take one of two forms:

1) an 'addr-spec' which is defined as a 'local-part "@" domain' e.g.

	ch1@vaxa.york.ac.uk

This of course can be modified by adding a 'comment' e.g. (Charles Hume) to
give:

	From: ch1@vaxa.york.ac.uk  (Charles Hume)

2) or 'phrase route-addr' where a 'phrase 'is e.g. charles hulme and a 'route
addr' is e.g. <CH1@VAXA.YORK.AC.UK> making:

	From: charles hulme <CH1@VAXA.YORK.AC.UK>

perfectly legal.

RFC 1123 further modified this to make the 'phrase' in 2) optional so:

	From: <CH1@VAXA.YORK.AC.UK>

is now also acceptable.


RFC 822 is dated 1982 and RFC 1123 is dated 1123 - seems like plenty of time
to have got this correct. Your software needs fixed!