stephen@comp.lancs.ac.uk (Stephen J. Muir) (01/09/87)
In article <284@einode.UUCP> simon@einode.UUCP (Simon Kenyon) writes: >using smail just to route uucp mail seems like an interesting thing to do. >i'm going to try that; and remove all my domain routing crap out of my A mail user interface should *never* try to interpret the contents of any header fields. smail breaks this golden rule. In particular, it should not try to do any routing either. Leave this all up to the mail delivery system. **** IF YOU TRY TO BE SMART, YOU WILL GET IT WRONG **** -- EMAIL: stephen@comp.lancs.ac.uk | Post: University of Lancaster, UUCP: ...!mcvax!ukc!dcl-cs!stephen | Department of Computing, Phone: +44 524 65201 Ext. 4120 | Bailrigg, Lancaster, UK. Project:Alvey ECLIPSE Distribution | LA1 4YR
simon@einode.UUCP (Simon Kenyon) (01/09/87)
stephen@comp.lancs.ac.uk (Stephen J. Muir): > In article <284@einode.UUCP> simon@einode.UUCP (Simon Kenyon) writes: >>using smail just to route uucp mail seems like an interesting thing to do. >>i'm going to try that; and remove all my domain routing crap out of my > A mail user interface should *never* try to interpret the contents of any > header fields. smail breaks this golden rule. In particular, it should not > try to do any routing either. Leave this all up to the mail delivery system. i take it from your comments that you don't know what smail is. smail is part of the mail delivery system, so it should do routing. thats the whole reason for smail. it is a mail router. anyway, i don't think it looks in the headers for that matter. -- Simon Kenyon EUnet: simon@einode.UUCP Smail: The National Software Centre, Dublin, IRELAND Phone: +353-1-716255
gmp@rayssd.UUCP (01/11/87)
In article <140@dcl-csvax.comp.lancs.ac.uk> stephen@comp.lancs.ac.uk (Stephen J. Muir) writes: > A mail user interface should *never* try to interpret the contents of any > header fields. smail breaks this golden rule. In particular, it should not > try to do any routing either. Leave this all up to the mail delivery system. > > **** IF YOU TRY TO BE SMART, YOU WILL GET IT WRONG **** Smail doesn't do anything with header fields. (Sure it deals with uucp remote-from lines, but only as an rmail emulator, so that hardly counts.) Also, I don't see how smail is more of a "mail user interface" than is sendmail, and sendmail plays all kinds of games with header fields. I'd go so far as to say that the majority of mail problems are due to sendmail fiddling with From: and To: addresses, not smail rerouting. The distributed configuration for smail doesn't do rerouting at all. Really, this discussion is absurd. UUCP mail used to work fine when the number of sites on the "net" was less than a thousand or so. It never worked too well when one wanted to send or receive mail to or from another mail network. It has been quite a disorganized mess for a number of years now. Why do you think people came up with programs like sendmail, pathalias, uumail, and smail? The good old days are gone, folks. If you want to send mail, either you've got to be smart, or your mailer does. The smail program doesn't automatically reroute mail, so you can prove your net-smarts all you want. I prefer to let the computer do it for me. -- Greg Paris ....................... gmp@rayssd.RAY.COM {cbosgd,gatech,ihnp4,linus,mirror,uiucdcs}!rayssd!gmp .. Everything seems to be up in the air at this point ................ I need something to change your mind
lyndon@ncc.UUCP (Lyndon Nerenberg) (01/13/87)
In article <140@dcl-csvax.comp.lancs.ac.uk>, stephen@comp.lancs.ac.uk (Stephen J. Muir) writes: > A mail user interface should *never* try to interpret the contents of any > header fields. smail breaks this golden rule. In particular, it should not > try to do any routing either. Leave this all up to the mail delivery system. But smail *is* our mail delivery system! Binmail, mailx (Mail), elm, and all the others work just as before. What smail has done is replace the rmail command, thus teaching our antiquated mail system about domains and routing. I defy you to find a "user" who prefers typing "a!q!z!b!r!f!y!l!i_forgot" over "user@site" :-) Smail (and most of the other routers) work just fine. What we are dealing with is a typical case of "Garbage In - Garbage Out". *Nothing* is going to work right until we have some realistic map data. -- Lyndon Nerenberg - Nexus Computing Corp. - lyndon@ncc.UUCP UUCP: {ihnp4,ubc-vision,vax135,watmath}!alberta!ncc!lyndon