[comp.mail.mh] Smart generation of reply address

dce@Solbourne.COM (David Elliott) (05/08/89)

When I moved to this site (Solbourne), I noticed that most of
the mail we get has invalid From: lines.  Many UUCP sites modify
this line, but not all do, so relying on the information in the
From: line resulted in failed mail about 50% of the time.

To fix this, I changed my replcomps file so that the first line
is:

%(lit)%(formataddr %<{reply-to}%|%<{return-path}%|%<{sender}%|%{from}%>%>%>)\

which causes the Reply-To: and Return-Path: fields to be used instead
of From:, resulting in almost no failed mail (in fact, I can't remember
the last time mail failed for me due to a bad path generated by MH
using Return-Path:).

What I would prefer, though, is that if the From: line contains an
@ and no !s, the From: line should be used, and otherwise the Return-Path:
should be used.  That way, I use Internet addressing whenever it is
available.  Currently, I just do this substitution by hand.

-- 
David Elliott		dce@Solbourne.COM
			...!{boulder,nbires,sun}!stan!dce

gregg@ihlpb.ATT.COM (Wonderly) (05/09/89)

From article <1019@marvin.Solbourne.COM>, by dce@Solbourne.COM (David Elliott):
>What I would prefer, though, is that if the From: line contains an
>@ and no !s, the From: line should be used, and otherwise the Return-Path:
>should be used.  That way, I use Internet addressing whenever it is
>available.  Currently, I just do this substitution by hand.

I did the same thing with like results.  I also made several changes to
sbr/addrsbr.c, uip/scansbr.c and uip/post.c so that

	1)	Addresses are rewitten to internet style addresses when mtstailor
		says to.

	2)	UUCP sites can make use of a domain which is attached to any machine
		that the local machine talks to directly (ihlpb!gregg becomes
		gregg@ihlpb.att.com)

	3)	When a UUCP style message is read by scan(), From: Date: and To: lines
		are inserted into the message if they are missing (/bin/mail only
        inserts a UUCP "From " line here).

	4)	send/post accept a -domain/-nodomain switch which allows you to
		change the header addressing format on the fly.

	5)	A uux gateway site can be specified which allows all unknown hosts
		to be processed logically (in a domain method, pass the buck if
		you don't know about this domain level).
-- 
Gregg Wonderly                             DOMAIN: gregg@ihlpb.att.com
AT&T Bell Laboratories                     UUCP:   att!ihlpb!gregg