mvs@alice.UUCP (02/25/87)
I'm experiencing some problems with the UNIX* electronic mail system. I hope somebody on the net can help me! Some mail items that I send seem to get corrupted in very strange ways. Often many lines of what appears to be debugging or logging information find their way to the beginning of my mail item! I'm pretty sure that this isn't happening on my machine. Example: % mail alice!mvs hello . % mail 1 messages From alice!mvs Thu Feb 19 12:23:45 1987 hello ?dq % If I send the same mail item to a friend at another site he receives something quite different! Lines of the form Received: by xxx.yyy.UUCP (4.12/4.7) id AA12424; Mon, 16 Feb 87 14:09:06 est are often added. I've omitted the names as to not embarass the people at that site (Hello Laura!). Surely these should be written to a log file and NOT into my mail item! Often the "From" line gets horribly mutilated. '%' signs crop up, which suggests to me that someone is screwing up a printf somewhere. Some of the output looks like what happens when I printf bad pointers! Occaisonally a greater-than-sign '>' is prepended to a line in the body of the message, and sometimes the top of the item gets completely scrunted, particalularly my chess games. Can anyone help me pinpoint the problem. I wouldn't want to go screaming to the system administrator if it wasn't his fault! Also my mail sometimes goes on the road for a couple of days. I've sent mail to a friend down the corridor and judging from the baggage tags it has been holidaying at some other machines? Where exactly is "seismo", it doesn't seem to be on my floor. Who is "mc" and where is his vax? Maybe it's down in the comp center? Aren't there maps of these things? Please post your answers for obvious reasons! _-_-_-_-Mark
T6YXN2%IER0VM@usndvm.UUCP (02/25/87)
eturn-Path: T6YXN2@IER0VM.UUCP Julian-Date: 56 Date-Received: Wed, 25 Feb 87 10:23:54 CST Date-Posted: Wed Feb 25 10:24:25 CST 1987 Sender: root@usndvax.ARPA (root) Reply-To: T6YXN2@IER0VM.UUCP Followup-To: net.wobegon Errors-To: unix-wizards@BRL.ARPA Flames-To: /dev/null Organization: Cow Systems Applications Network Devices Research, Inc. Real-Organization: Cash-Flow Computers, Inc. Actual-Organization: University of Southern North Dakota Part-Time-Organization: A & P Grocery, Hoople Last-Logged-In: Thu Feb 12 11:11:09 on ttyi06 Full-Name: Thomas G. Yoxon, II Job-Title: Professional Student Shoe-Size: 10 1/2 US-Mail-Address: PO Box 11, Lonesome, ND Car-License-Plate: HAC K3R Drivers-License-Number: M771092 Social-Security-Number: 499-71-3006 Office-Extension: x2-3579 Home-Phone: (701) 555-1212 Calling-Card-Number: 5491 Weather: Partly Cloudy, Clearing Friday Phase-Of-Moon: New Favorite-Color: Blue Capital-Of-Assyria: Nineveh Cuteness-Quotient: 165 *grin* In article <6661@alice.uUCp>, mvs@alice.UUCP writes: >I'm experiencing some problems with the UNIX* electronic >mail system. I hope somebody on the net can help me! >Some mail items that I send seem to get corrupted in >very strange ways. Often many lines of what appears >to be debugging or logging information find their >way to the beginning of my mail item! I'm pretty sure >that this isn't happening on my machine. Example: > > % mail alice!mvs > hello > . > % mail > 1 messages > From alice!mvs Thu Feb 19 12:23:45 1987 > hello > > ?dq > % > >If I send the same mail item to a friend at another site >he receives something quite different! Lines of the form > > Received: by xxx.yyy.UUCP (4.12/4.7) > id AA12424; Mon, 16 Feb 87 14:09:06 est > >are often added. I've omitted the names as to not embarass >the people at that site (Hello Laura!). Surely these should be >written to a log file and NOT into my mail item! Often the >"From" line gets horribly mutilated. '%' signs crop up, which >suggests to me that someone is screwing up a printf somewhere. >Some of the output looks like what happens when I printf bad >pointers! Occaisonally a greater-than-sign '>' is prepended >to a line in the body of the message, and sometimes the top >of the item gets completely scrunted, particalularly my chess games. >Can anyone help me pinpoint the problem. I wouldn't want to >go screaming to the system administrator if it wasn't his fault! > >Also my mail sometimes goes on the road for a couple of days. >I've sent mail to a friend down the corridor and judging from the >baggage tags it has been holidaying at some other machines? Where >exactly is "seismo", it doesn't seem to be on my floor. Who is >"mc" and where is his vax? Maybe it's down in the comp center? >Aren't there maps of these things? > >Please post your answers for obvious reasons! > >_-_-_-_-Mark The following is a pre-recorded message from Thomas G. Yoxon, II: I have received your message of Wed Feb 25 01:55:51 CST 1987 correctly. I am currently out of town. I will not be reading my mail until I get back. I will be back sometime on Thursday February 19. This is the only message you will receive.
merlin@hqda-ai.UUCP (02/25/87)
In article <6661@alice.uUCp>, mvs@alice.UUCP writes: > Lines of the form > > Received: by xxx.yyy.UUCP (4.12/4.7) > id AA12424; Mon, 16 Feb 87 14:09:06 est > > are often added. I've omitted the names as to not embarass > the people at that site (Hello Laura!). Surely these should be > written to a log file and NOT into my mail item! The received header lines are added by every machine that gets the mail. You machine probably puts one in the message you sent to yourself, but the mail program (the "user agent", as opposed to the "delivery agent") doesn't show them to you. They should not be put in a log file. The present method has enough information to trace exactly where and when a mail message was routed. If it gets lost, it can be important to see that this information does not get separated from the mail itself. That's why its included in the header lines. > Often the "From" line gets horribly mutilated. '%' signs crop > up, which suggests to me that someone is screwing up a printf > somewhere. Some of the output looks like what happens when I > printf bad pointers! In the internet (like ARPA, CSNET, BITNET) world, addresses are of the form "mvs@alice". There can be only one "@" in the address. The % is a sleaze that is used when a mailer really wants to have two @ symbols, but the rules only allow one. > Occaisonally a greater-than-sign '>' is prepended to a line in > the body of the message, and sometimes the top of the item gets > completely scrunted, particalularly my chess games. Many mail messages are held in the same file. To distinguish them, the mailers look for the header lines. (Usually, they look in particular for a line of the form From {address} at {time} but others are in use.) If you have a line in your message that looks too much like this, it could mess up a mailer. Thus, the delivery agents (programs responsible for passing mail around to different machines) put a ">" in front of these lines. This keeps the mail user agents (the programs that humans use to display mail) from being fooled. > Can anyone help me pinpoint the problem. I wouldn't want to > go screaming to the system administrator if it wasn't his fault! It's not your system administrators fault. In fact, it's nobody's fault. It's supposed to work this way. > Where exactly is "seismo", it doesn't seem to be on my floor. > Who is "mc" and where is his vax? Seismo is a machine (sun-3, I think) at the Center for Seismic Studies in Washington, DC. Basically Grand Central Station for electronic communications on the east coast. Almost everything of any real interest goes through there. Mcvax is a VAX-11/750 in Amsterdam. Much the same sort of service as seismo. Mcvax is responsible for all of the netnews distribution in Europe. Both of these machines are well-connected to many different networks. They do a great service to the rest of us by acting as gateway machines. (Gateways are systems that pass messages back and forth between different networks.) > Aren't there maps of these things? Yes, there are. They're published every month on the Usenet news system, in the group "mod.map". Most of the information is presented in a somewhat cryptic form. It's intended for the use of software that routes mail automatically, so you never have to look at the maps. -- David S. Hayes, The Merlin of Avalon PhoneNet: (202) 694-6900 ARPA: merlin%hqda-ai.uucp@brl.arpa UUCP: ...!seismo!sundc!hqda-ai!merlin
root@system5.UUCP (02/26/87)
+-----<6661@alice.uUCp>--- mvs@alice.UUCP ----- | I'm experiencing some problems with the UNIX* electronic mail system. | Often many lines of what appears to be debugging or logging information | find their way to the beginning of my mail item! | Lines of the form | Received: by xxx.yyy.UUCP (4.12/4.7) | id AA12424; Mon, 16 Feb 87 14:09:06 est | are often added. Surely these should be written to a log file... +---------------------------------------------- How easy it is to become acustomed to this annoyance! Is there an RFC out there somewhere which states that each site which handles a mail message MUST put this crap in? Right now my mailbox has 3 messages in it, 120 lines total. Of this, there are 12 lines of 'real' information, that is, the stuff actually written by the authors! The first message has 23 lines of Received: stuff, 4 >From/>From:/From lines, and 4 lines of 'text'. Most of this mail message doesn't really matter to me. Sure, if I'm having troubles getting mail to/from somewhere these lines help pinpoint mailer fubars, but this trace info should be the EXCEPTION, not the RULE. +--- | "From" line gets horribly mutilated. '%' signs crop up, which ... | Occaisonally a greater-than-sign '>' is prepended to a line in the body +--- The From line gets chomped by some mailers because they insist (wrongly or rightly) on adding themselves to the from address. '%' signs are a kludge used in forwarding mail between Arpanet and UUCP The > is prepended on lines which begin with the word "From". This is because some mailers think that a message starts with the word 'From', and since this 'From' is not the beginning of an article, it gets changed. It really should be changed back... +--- | Also my mail sometimes goes on the road for a couple of days. | I've sent mail to a friend down the corridor and judging from the | baggage tags it has been holidaying at some other machines? Where | exactly is "seismo", it doesn't seem to be on my floor. Who is | "mc" and where is his vax? Maybe it's down in the comp center? | Aren't there maps of these things? +--- If your internal mail ('down the corridor') is being routed through seismo, mcvax, et al, then you *really should* talk to your system manager. That's like going from Chicago to Milwaukee by way of San Fransisco or Boston. Nice places to visit, but one heck of a commute! On the map picture I have (from mod.map newsgroup), seismo is in Maryland, mcvax is 'somewhere northeast' of Maine. John
ken@rochester.UUCP (02/26/87)
|How easy it is to become acustomed to this annoyance! Is there an RFC out |there somewhere which states that each site which handles a mail message |MUST put this crap in? Right now my mailbox has 3 messages in it, 120 |lines total. Of this, there are 12 lines of 'real' information, that is, |the stuff actually written by the authors! The first message has 23 lines |of Received: stuff, 4 >From/>From:/From lines, and 4 lines of 'text'. Most |of this mail message doesn't really matter to me. Sure, if I'm having |troubles getting mail to/from somewhere these lines help pinpoint mailer |fubars, but this trace info should be the EXCEPTION, not the RULE. I don't know what mail interface you are using, but both Mail and MH allow such headers to be supressed in the display. I never see these lines unless I read the raw mail file. Ask a mail guru how to set up your mail environment. Ken