jerry@oliveb.UUCP (Jerry Aguirre) (01/15/85)
This refers to systems running 4.1 BSD so all you 4.2 people please don't respond with data about sendmail. I have run into a problem interfacing the various mail programs to each other. When mail comes in via uucp it gets the "remote from" string appended to the "From" line. This causes the Berkeley Mail program to not recognize this as a "From" line. The mail is displayed as the tail end of the previous mail message. I can see two fixes to this problem: 1 - Use the rmail program which corrects the "From" lines added to uucp mail. 2 - Modify Mail to allow "remote from" on the "From" line. The comments in rmail say that if you are not an arpanet gateway then just link /bin/rmail to /bin/mail. But this does not work when the Berkeley Mail program is being used. So, is the Berkeley Mail program being to picky or should I use rmail? Jerry Aguirre @ Olivetti ATC {hplabs|fortune|idi|ihnp4|tolerant|allegra|tymix}!oliveb!jerry
rpw3@redwood.UUCP (Rob Warnock) (01/16/85)
+--------------- | This refers to systems running 4.1 BSD so all you 4.2 people please | don't respond with data about sendmail... | I have run into a problem interfacing the various mail programs to | each other. When mail comes in via uucp it gets the "remote from" | string appended to the "From" line. This causes the Berkeley Mail | program to not recognize this as a "From" line. The mail is | displayed as the tail end of the previous mail message. +--------------- I have seen this problem before, and it wasn't related to the "remote from" string at all. I don't believe this is the problem. At Fortune they ran (still run for some users) 4.1bsd "Mail", and it handles "remote from" just fine, as does the 4.1 derivative on the 32:16 which I use. In fact, the "remote from" is REQUIRED if the address is to be parsed correctly (otherwise the message is "From uucp"). If you have a string of sites all using Version 7 mail, you will have as many "From uucp ... remote from XXX" lines as there are relay sites. The problem is that BerkMail expects a blank line between messages, and doesn't treat a line starting with "From " as a new message unless the previous line was blank. What's probably happening is that the PREVIOUS mail message didn't have a blank line after it. With a mixture of sites sending to you, some will be running old Version 7 mail (which DOESN'T force a blank line on the end of the message, but also doesn't require it) and some will be running BerkMail and others, which DO force a blank line. The "rmail" program which receives uucp mail is basically Version 7 mail, and DOESN'T force a blank line on the end. If the entire string of sites from the originator to you are running V.7, and if the original message did NOT have an "extra" newline at the end, the mail can gobble the NEXT message (actually not gobble, but "annex"). The problem doesn't usually show up locally, since most editors force the last line to have a newline, and most mailers tack a newline on the end, but you can force it for testing if you have a user running MH (or 'hm') who uses the Rand "E" editor (or any other editor which allows you to create "incomplete last lines"). Try it. Or, manually create a bunch of mail with no blank lines between and cat it onto the end of your mail spool file, then read it with BerkMail... then read it with /bin/mail. +--------------- | I can see two fixes to this problem: | | 1 - Use the rmail program which corrects the "From" lines | added to uucp mail. +--------------- They are already correct. Don't "fix" it (you'll break it). I know of no fix other than to change BerkMail's reader/parser to look for "From " at the beginning of EVERY line, not just after blank lines. (Alternatively, you can make "rmail" be a program which ensures that there is a blank line on the end, and passes the result to /bin/mail...) At Fortune, once we diagnosed the problem (and that took a while), all that was done was to ask people not to write mail with "incomplete last lines". You may need a more reliable solution. p.s. The problem just started happening to me again recently, when a uucp neighbor got a bad message stuck in the queue, and his "uux" daemon sent me a complaining letter each time I polled. The daemon-generated letters didn't have extra newlines, so my BerkMail started tacking other people's mail onto the end of those error messages. Yucchh! Rob Warnock Systems Architecture Consultant UUCP: {ihnp4,ucbvax!dual}!fortune!redwood!rpw3 DDD: (415)572-2607 USPS: 510 Trinidad Lane, Foster City, CA 94404