rob@pbhyf.PacBell.COM (Rob Bernardo) (03/10/89)
This is a question about allowable formats for the topmost "From " line in a mail message. ELM only recognizes lines of the format From [logname] [date] as the beginning of a mail message. However, the ELM development group has gotten a complaint from a user on a system that uses smail 2.5 as the mail transport agent. Apparently smail 2.5 (according to this user) delivers mail messages with first lines of the format From [logname] [date] remote from [host] Now I see those in messages but never as the *topmost* line. The question is: Is smail broken and disobeying the standard, or should ELM tolerate topmost from lines of such format? -- Rob Bernardo, Pacific Bell UNIX/C Reusable Code Library Email: ...![backbone]!pacbell!pbhyf!rob OR rob@pbhyf.PacBell.COM Office: (415) 823-2417 Room 4E850O San Ramon Valley Administrative Center Residence: (415) 827-4301 R Bar JB, Concord, California
dheller@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Dan Heller) (03/11/89)
In article <4820@pbhyf.PacBell.COM> rob@pbhyf.PacBell.COM (Rob Bernardo) writes: >This is a question about allowable formats for the topmost "From " >line in a mail message. > >The question is: Is smail broken and disobeying the standard, or >should ELM tolerate topmost from lines of such format? First, it should be noted that there is no "standard" when it comes to "From " lines in folders. This is not part of the message headers in a message and therefore causes havok with allo sorts of user agents that try to read this header. there are many different formats used, mostly differing in the format of the "date" specified: >ELM only recognizes lines of the format > From [logname] [date] >as the beginning of a mail message. Elm might gag on certain date formats and inadvertently cause two consecutive messages to be concatenated together. I don't know this for sure, but many elm-to-mush converts have indicated to me that their version had done this wrong at times. Due to the many different versions of Elm that are out there, I can't say whether this has been fixed or not. >with first lines of the format > From [logname] [date] remote from [host] >Now I see those in messages but never as the *topmost* line. It's true that this is very unusual, and altho Mush will parse this message correctly, chances are high that the return address of the author of the message might be incorrect. Typically, uucp hosts running older versions of binmail or whatever will generate lines that look like: From uucp [date] >From user [date] remote from <path> ... The number of >From lines may vary depending on the path and the mailers involved, but since this is the most commonly used method, using the format you mention above is inadvisable even tho there is no "standard" being broken. Dan Heller <island!argv@sun.com>
zeeff@b-tech.ann-arbor.mi.us (Jon Zeeff) (03/11/89)
In article <4820@pbhyf.PacBell.COM> rob@pbhyf.PacBell.COM (Rob Bernardo) writes: >ELM only recognizes lines of the format > > From [logname] [date] > >The question is: Is smail broken and disobeying the standard, or >should ELM tolerate topmost from lines of such format? I think elm should tolerate it since it's an old standard. Of course I really think that all smail 2.5 sites should be running my "lmail", which fixes this problem and adds forwarding to programs and files. Let me know if you want a copy. -- Jon Zeeff zeeff@b-tech.ann-arbor.mi.us Ann Arbor, MI mailrus!b-tech!zeeff
chip@ateng.ateng.com (Chip Salzenberg) (03/19/89)
[This is not "misc", but "uucp"; thus followups have been moved.] According to zeeff@b-tech.ann-arbor.mi.us (Jon Zeeff): >According to rob@pbhyf.PacBell.COM (Rob Bernardo): >>ELM only recognizes lines of the format >> From [logname] [date] >>The question is: Is smail broken and disobeying the standard, or >>should ELM tolerate topmost from lines of such format? > >I think elm should tolerate it since it's an old standard. Jon here refers to "From [logname] [date] remote from [host]". A line of this form is the standard envelope for messages that are *in transit*. It is *not* the standard envelope for messages in mailboxes! Any mailer that deposits "remote from" envelopes in mailboxes is broken. >Of course I really think that all smail 2.5 sites should be running >my "lmail", which fixes this problem and adds forwarding to >programs and files. Let me know if you want a copy. Actually, I think that my deliver program is a rather more flexible and secure solution to the mail delivery problem; I wrote it after trying lmail. (And, yes, deliver folds the "remote from" field into the "From whoever" phrase.) But then, any author thinks his solution is best, right? :-) -- Chip Salzenberg <chip@ateng.com> or <uunet!ateng!chip> A T Engineering Me? Speak for my company? Surely you jest! "It's no good. They're tapping the lines."