xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) (03/10/91)
Despite my mailer turning the "Reply-To: tpa-vote%wolves@cs.duke.edu" of the call for votes posting in news.announce.newgroups into the perfectly reasonable: > uupath tpa-vote$wolves@cs.duke.edu ames!gatech!mcnc!duke!wolves!tpa-vote The mail does not in fact make it to the vote taker; delivery is attempted at cs.duke.edu rather than at wolves. In hopes that an early report of problems can keep the vote from being messed up, here's the bounce message (sorry for the mess, I really don't know enough about email to know what's important here); long lines are wrapped to make the box routine work, and tabs are expanded, and I nuked the content of my vote from the original Subject line; otherwise, this is what the bounce looked like: /------------------------------------------------------------------------\ | | | From ames!gatech!mcnc.org!wolves!mcnc!mcnc.org!MAILER-DAEMON | | Sat Mar 9 18:20:36 1991 | | Return-Path: <ames!gatech!mcnc.org!wolves!mcnc!mcnc.org!MAILER-DAEMON> | | Received: by zorch.SF-Bay.ORG | | (/\=-/\ Smail3.1.18.1 #18.5) | | id <m0jFG1U-000HW0C@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG>; | | Sat, 9 Mar 91 18:20 PST | | Received: by ames.arc.nasa.gov (5.64/1.2); | | Sat, 9 Mar 91 16:35:42 -0800 | | Received: from mcnc.mcnc.org by gatech.edu (4.1/Gatech-9.1) | | id AA28863 for zorch!xanthian; | | Sat, 9 Mar 91 19:30:15 EST | | Received: by mcnc.mcnc.org (5.59/MCNC/6-11-90) | | id AA29421; Sat, 9 Mar 91 19:30:11 -0500 | | for ames!zorch!xanthian@gatech.edu | | Received: by wolves.UUCP (smail2.3) | | id AA07829; 9 Mar 91 19:00:12 EST (Sat) | | Received: by mcnc.mcnc.org (5.59/MCNC/6-11-90) | | id AB27015; Sat, 9 Mar 91 17:34:49 -0500 | | for mcnc!gatech.edu!ames!zorch!xanthian | | Date: Sat, 9 Mar 91 17:34:49 -0500 | | From: Mail Delivery Subsystem | | <ames!gatech!mcnc.org!mcnc.org!mcnc.org!MAILER-DAEMON> | | Subject: Returned mail: User unknown | | Message-Id: <9103092234.AB27015@mcnc.mcnc.org> | | To: wolves!mcnc!gatech.edu!ames!zorch!xanthian@mcnc.org | | Status: R | | | | ----- Transcript of session follows ----- | | >>> RCPT To:<tpa-vote@duke.cs.duke.edu> | | <<< 550 <tpa-vote@duke.cs.duke.edu>... User unknown: Invalid argument | | 550 duke!tpa-vote... User unknown | | | | ----- Unsent message follows ----- | | Received: by mcnc.mcnc.org (5.59/MCNC/6-11-90) | | id AA27015; Sat, 9 Mar 91 17:34:49 -0500 | | for tpa-vote@duke.cs.duke.edu | | Received: by wolves.UUCP (smail2.3) | | id AA07272; 9 Mar 91 17:27:51 EST (Sat) | | Received: by mcnc.mcnc.org (5.59/MCNC/6-11-90) | | id AA25160; Sat, 9 Mar 91 15:54:07 -0500 | | for mcnc!duke!tpa-vote | | Received: from gatech.UUCP by gatech.edu (4.1/Gatech-9.1) | | id AA24800 for wolves!mcnc!duke!tpa-vote; | | Sat, 9 Mar 91 15:11:42 EST | | Received: from gatech.edu by gatech.UUCP (4.1/SMI-4.1) | | id AA08641; Sat, 9 Mar 91 15:11:21 EST | | Received: from ames.arc.nasa.gov by gatech.edu | | (4.1/Gatech-9.1) | | id AA24793 for mcnc!duke!tpa-vote@wolves; | | Sat, 9 Mar 91 15:11:18 EST | | Received: by ames.arc.nasa.gov (5.64/1.2); | | Sat, 9 Mar 91 12:11:15 -0800 | | Received: by zorch.SF-Bay.ORG | | (/\=-/\ Smail3.1.18.1 #18.5) | | id <m0jF9hn-000HVvC@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG>; | | Sat, 9 Mar 91 11:35 PST | | Message-Id: <m0jF9hn-000HVvC@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> | | Date: Sat, 9 Mar 91 11:35 PST | | From: gatech.edu!ames!zorch.SF-Bay.ORG!xanthian@mcnc | | (Kent Paul Dolan) | | To: cs.duke.edu!tpa-vote@wolves | | Subject: XXXXX vote on talk.politics.aids as proposed | | Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,soc.motss,talk.politics.misc, | | talk.religion.misc,sci.med,sci.med.aids | | In-Reply-To: <}#9-MV%@rpi.edu> | | Organization: SF-Bay Public-Access Unix | | Cc: | | | \------------------------------------------------------------------------/ Notice that, at least according to my uupath report, that last "To:" line is _not_ how the mail left here. In fact, here's the header from my "record" copy of the outbound mail. /------------------------------------------------------------------------\ | | | From xanthian Sat Mar 9 11:35:54 1991 | | Return-Path: <xanthian> | | Received: by zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (/\=-/\ Smail3.1.18.1 #18.5) | | id <m0jF9hn-000HVvC@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG>; Sat, 9 Mar 91 11:35 PST | | Message-Id: <m0jF9hn-000HVvC@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> | | Date: Sat, 9 Mar 91 11:35 PST | | From: xanthian (Kent Paul Dolan) | | To: tpa-vote%wolves@cs.duke.edu | | Subject: XXXXX vote on talk.politics.aids as proposed | | Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,soc.motss, | | talk.politics.misc,talk.religion.misc,sci.med,sci.med.aids | | In-Reply-To: <}#9-MV%@rpi.edu> | | Organization: SF-Bay Public-Access Unix | | Cc: | | Status: R | | | \------------------------------------------------------------------------/ [It would be more than dandy if nobody's mail software felt compelled to muck about with the original "To:" line so that it was still around for the record. Someone along the path butchered mine, but there's no way to know who it was from the bounce message.] If this is in any case a local problem, sorry for cluttering up the net with it. Kent, the man from xanth. <xanthian@Zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> <xanthian@well.sf.ca.us>
news%wolves@cs.duke.edu (News Administrator @ Wolves) (03/11/91)
(To quote Arte Johnson --- vvvveeeeerrrrrrryyyyyyy interesting!) First, there are some bounces being seen here at wolves where the mail is being misdirected through here toward duke!tpa-vote. All seem to involve gatech in some manner. Mail that makes it to mcnc or duke other than via gatech is being delivered and dealt with correctly. ----- That said, what follows are some thoughts on my examination of the headers that Kent provided and the mail.log here at wolves. --- It sure looks to me as if gatech has done some reorganizing internally and has the mailers abusing mixed mode addresses again. I have seen some very mangled headers to and from this site and most seem to have been manipulated by gatech. Occasionally, I have seen mcnc behave a little wierd, but Kent's example sure points a hard finger at gatech. I've never heard of a site makeing a real distinction between its domain name and its uucp name, but there it is, gatech.edu and gatech.UUCP with seperate headers! It is also possible that the problem lies with ames. The other piece of mail that was misdirected to duke for a user at this site also came through ames. There are, however some mangled mailings (apparantly) from gatech that did not go thru ames. At the same time as Kent's bounce, another piece of mail via gatech got similarly mangled. Wolves is not an aggressive re-router and could not recognize that "duke!tpa-vote" was really bound for wolves. I suspect that there are some sites that have a few problems in the map data and are not handling the "%-hack" as documented. Though passing the % to a uucp mailer may guarantee no particular result. There is a transform: tpa-vote%wolves@cs.duke.edu to cs.duke.edu!tpa-vote@wolves that is troublesome. That transform, while technically "right" in some sense is not guaranteed to work since the result is a mixed mode address that has no "right" interpretation. Different systems can (and do) interpret the mixed ! and @ addresses in opposite orders. Whoever produced the address expected one behaviour, and gatech.UUCP in resolving the address for gatech.edu did it the other way. There is no way to say who is correct. You might look in your record of outgoing mail for Dec 19 and see what address you sent mail to site wolves via on that date. -- Usenet Net News Administrator @ The Wolves Den news%wolves@cs.duke.edu news%wolves@mcnc.org ...duke!wolves!news There is a real person who watches this account as their assigned task!