🚀 go-pugleaf

> In article <13952@ucsd.Edu>, brian@ucsd.Edu (Brian Kantor) writes:
>> Some uucp hosts, particularly those running sendmail, WILL update the
>> RFC822 "From: " line.  Others don't, which means that the From: line
>> is of questionable integrity if the mail has ever passed through a uucp
>> link.

tp@mccall.com writes:
> The sendmail sites (and anyone foolish enough to emulate them) are wrong.
> Headers shouldn't be modified! This is according to RFC822.

Headers shouldn't be modified IF they are already compliant with RFC822.
The headers that aren't (especially From: lines with no @ in them) aren't
constrained at all.  There's a good justification for putting "myname!" at
the beginning of such lines, or tacking "@my.domain" onto the end.  There's
nothing in RFC822 that specifies what to do to messages that already
violate it.

> I get unuseable
> From: lines because my neighboring site is a sendmail site.

That's a little overgeneralized, there are sendmail sites that don't rewrite.

> uucp does require paths. uucp also doesn't have the vaguest idea what a
> header line is. Even the "From " line is only so mailers can attempt to
> generate reply addresses. The path is the ENVELOPE of the message. Header
> info is NOT used for delivery. 

This is only true for dumb UUCP sites.  There are also smart UUCP sites
around, even smart UUCP sites that don't have a registered domain.  We
have to take these people into account too.  They can't use
"From: user@domain" because they don't have a domain (not everyone can
handle the .UUCP domain), and if they don't put in a From: line at all,
a recipient on a smart site won't be able to reply.

> Many uucp hops of
> a message are typically sendmail sites, and they all do this kind of
> munging, leading to real confusion.

Absolutely.  I've seen some really incredible specimans pass through here
(I wish I'd saved them for this discussion).

> smail
> 2.whatever works as I have described (I used to run a unix machine).

Not quite, smail 2.5 will put "myname!" at the beginning of From: lines
that don't already have a @ in them.  I think this is the right thing
to do for something that's going out over UUCP anyway, since the final
destination may be a smart UUCP site that wants to see a usable From:
line.

I think your arguments are generally right except that non-RFC822
headers sometimes have to be munged anyway.  If nothing else, they
have to be made RFC822-compliant if the message is being gated onto
the Internet, and they have to be kept usable for receiving UUCP
sites.

---
Tom Fitzgerald      Wang Labs           fitz@wang.com
1-508-967-5278      Lowell MA, USA      ...!uunet!wang!fitz