[comp.mail.uucp] Mail transfer vs. gatewaying

moore@CYGNUSX1.CS.UTK.EDU (Keith Moore) (07/22/89)

From article <4291@viscous.sco.COM>, by stewarte@sco.COM (Stewart Evans):
> As I understand it, it is proper for transfer agents
> to rewrite from: fields so that they point back to 
> the sender.  Is it "proper" to do the same with to:
> and cc: fields?  

To which Christian Huitema <huitema@mirsa.inira.fr> replies in article
<203@mirsa.inria.fr>:
>It is improper to rewrite any field, except perhaps the "envelope". Just
>pass the message as it is: if the originating MUA used proper domain

To which David Herron <david@ms.uky.edu> replies in article 
<12226@s.ms.uky.edu>:
>Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, 1,000,000 times wrong
>
>For instance, mail going from UUCP-land to RFC-land must have
>the ! type addresses translated to @ type addresses before they'll
>be understood by RFC-land mailers.
>
>In general gateway machines MUST rewrite headers

Perhaps I misunderstood the question by Stewart Evans, but I thought
he was referring to the simple *transfer* of mail within the UUCP
mail network.  If this was the case then the correct answer is indeed
to avoid rewriting any header field.

On the other hand, David Herron is also correct in that it is often necessary
to rewrite mail headers when gatewaying mail from one mail network (say UUCP)
to another mail network (say SMTP/RFC822).

Many of these arguments about header rewriting seem to be a consequence of 
the Procrustes theory of mail handling.

Keith Moore			Internet: moore@utkcs2.cs.utk.edu
University of Tenn. CS Dept.	BITNET: moore@utkvx
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