steve@thelake.mn.org (Steve Yelvington) (07/22/90)
I noticed a problem tonight with some mail that came in from a
Fidonet gateway. The error message was:
======= command failed =======
COMMAND: /bin/lmail steve
======= standard error follows =======
lmail.ttp: Missing or bad From_ line -- no mail delivered.
======= text of message follows =======
>From bungia!umn-cs!plains!uunet.UU.NET!m2xenix!puddle!f4.n320.z2.fidonet.org!Vincent.Pomey
Received: by bungia.MN.ORG (smail2.5 (MN.ORG))
id AA13392; 21 Jul 90 15:05:16 CDT (Sat)
et cetera. Apparently the "From " line in all the mail I've received
from Vincent does not include the date-time information that normally
follows the path. So I have a couple of questions:
* Is this a known problem with Fidonet gateways? Or is it possible
that an intermediate site is truncating the line? The message headers
say X-Mailer: mailout v1.26 released.
* Is it common for delivery agents to be this picky? I don't know why
the date would be so darned important. If I had failed to define
aliases for bad-mail and bounced-mail, I probably would not have
received the messages. I'd rather get them with bad headers than not
get them at all.
We're using lmail as a delivery agent and Smail 2.5 as a smart mailer.
Both have been ported to TOS (Atari ST) from Un*x sources.
--
Steve Yelvington at the lake in Minnesota
steve@thelake.mn.orgjeh@dcs.simpact.com (07/23/90)
In article <A29562102@thelake.mn.org>, steve@thelake.mn.org (Steve Yelvington) writes: > I noticed a problem tonight with some mail that came in from a > Fidonet gateway. The error message was: [...] > lmail.ttp: Missing or bad From_ line -- no mail delivered. [...] > * Is it common for delivery agents to be this picky? I don't know why > the date would be so darned important. ... It is common, but in my opinion, 100% wrong. A bad From_ line, or for that matter a missing From_ line, should not be considered a fatal error. Sure, the delivered message will be unreplyable by a simple "reply" command, but that's lots better than having no message delivered at all. The same is true for all other headers. RFC822 and etc. notwithstanding, the only thing that's absolutely necessary for mail delivery is the To: line. If the To: line specifies a valid addressee, the mail should be delivered to her or him forthwith. --- Jamie Hanrahan, Simpact Associates, San Diego CA Chair, VMSnet [DECUS uucp] and Internals Working Groups, DECUS VAX Systems SIG Internet: jeh@dcs.simpact.com, or if that fails, jeh@crash.cts.com Uucp: ...{crash,scubed,decwrl}!simpact!jeh
tp@mccall.com (07/23/90)
In article <1486.26a9d418@dcs.simpact.com>, jeh@dcs.simpact.com writes: > In article <A29562102@thelake.mn.org>, steve@thelake.mn.org > (Steve Yelvington) writes: >> lmail.ttp: Missing or bad From_ line -- no mail delivered. ... >> * Is it common for delivery agents to be this picky? I don't know why >> the date would be so darned important. ... > > It is common, but in my opinion, 100% wrong. A bad From_ line, or for that > matter a missing From_ line, should not be considered a fatal error. Sure, t > delivered message will be unreplyable by a simple "reply" command, but that's > lots better than having no message delivered at all. > > The same is true for all other headers. RFC822 and etc. notwithstanding, the > only thing that's absolutely necessary for mail delivery is the To: line. > If the To: line specifies a valid addressee, the mail should be delivered > to her or him forthwith. Actually, the To: line isn't used for mail routing, and isn't necessary either. What is necessary is a useable envelope address (the one on the rmail command that you got via uux from the previous site, in the case of uucp). No headers are needed whatsoever to deliver a message, and none should be required. The ONLY need for a From_ line is to construct a bang-path useable as a reply address. A mailer is broken if it won't deliver mail with no headers whatsoever, as long as the envelope address is still useable. On the other hand, if you have no envelope address, but you do have a To: address, it may be a good thing to try to deliver to it. I'm not sure what RFC822 says about this, and whether it is a valid thing to do. I'm not sure if you should ever try to deliver without an envelope address. In your (Steve's) particular case, remember that the bang path in the From_ line is the return path. It is probably not the fidonet gateway that loused up, but bungia or the site before it. After all, it got through all those other hosts just fine. Remember that most uucp sites will either modify the From_ line or add another one, and modifying it is preferred. Always suspect the recent sites a message has visited first. -- Terry Poot <tp@mccall.com> The McCall Pattern Company (uucp: ...!rutgers!ksuvax1!mccall!tp) 615 McCall Road (800)255-2762, in KS (913)776-4041 Manhattan, KS 66502, USA