kevin@harvard.ARPA (Kevin Crowston) (05/31/85)
I'm going to be writing a mail handler programme.
The programme will sit on a Xerox 1108, listen for
TCP/IP connections and try to handle an SMTP dialogue.
I've read RFC821 and think that the programme should
be pretty straightforward, but I'm a little concerned
about doing the "right" things. If anyone has written
a mail server recently, I would appreciate any advice
on what sorts of things cause problems. I'd also like
to know which parts of RFC821 are routinely ignored,
not implemented, etc. I get the feeling that a lot of
servers are not quite standard, or rather, the standard
on the net is not quite the same as the standard on paper.
I also realize that the programme is going to have to do
some formatting of RFC822 type headers. I haven't yet
read RFC822, so I'm not sure how difficult this will be,
but I have the same sort of question as before. I think
my handling of mail headers should be pretty simple since
I don't intend to forward mail or try to generate addresses
for UUCP sites, etc. I think I can let the user type in some
address and just plonk that straight into the envelope and
the header fields. Does this sound like a workable
strategy or am I making the same mistake all beginners make?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Perhaps the collection
of advice will serve as a sort of implementor's guide (perhaps
one already exists) that will keep the net somewhat compatible.
Kevin Crowston
MIT Sloan School of Management
--
Kevin Crowston UUCP: {seismo,ut-sally}!harvard!kevin
MIT Sloan School of Management ARPA: kevin@harvard.ARPA