msir@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (Mark Sirota) (02/18/89)
I just found a misfeature with UCB Mail. If remote mail comes in (i.e. mail from a remote site, with a From: line of the form remote-user@remote-host and your sendmail.cf strips the hostname off of local addresses, so that the To: reads just local-user instead of local-user@local-host and the local user does a replyall in UCB Mail, then the resulting To: line will be local-user@remote-host remote-user@remote-host I find this unacceptable. It would seem that UCB mail is trying to be intelligent; that is, it's assuming that remote-host may have been dumb and not fully qualified it's addresses, so it tries to recreate it for you. Well, I don't want it to do that. I deliberately strip the local machine name off of all addresses before local delivery, so the headers will never contain the local host name. And now I find that UCB Mail is trying to protect me from myself. That pisses me off. BTW, this is under SunOS 3.5. Haven't tested it under 4.3. -- Mark Sirota - University of Rochester, Rochester, NY Internet: msir@cc.rochester.edu Bitnet: msir_ss@uordbv.bitnet UUCP: ...!rochester!ur-cc!msir
msir@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (Mark Sirota) (02/18/89)
In article <885@ur-cc.UUCP> msir@cc.rochester.edu (Mark Sirota) writes: > I just found a misfeature with UCB Mail. If remote mail comes in (i.e. > mail from a remote site, with a From: line of the form > remote-user@remote-host > and your sendmail.cf strips the hostname off of local addresses, so that > the To: reads just > local-user > instead of > local-user@local-host > and the local user does a replyall in UCB Mail, then the resulting To: > line will be > local-user@remote-host remote-user@remote-host > > I find this unacceptable. It would seem that UCB mail is trying to be > intelligent; that is, it's assuming that remote-host may have been dumb > and not fully qualified it's addresses, so it tries to recreate it for you. > > Well, I don't want it to do that. I deliberately strip the local machine > name off of all addresses before local delivery, so the headers will never > contain the local host name. And now I find that UCB Mail is trying to > protect me from myself. > > That pisses me off. I've just been looking through the code for Mail. The offending procedure appears to be netmap() in optim.c, which is called from mapf() in names.c, which is called from _respond() in cmd3.c. In my opinion, the world would be a better place if this sequence of functions were never called. Does anyone see a good reason not to do it? The problem, as I see it, is that these functions are insuring that the use doesn't get trapped by a stupid sendmail.cf elsewhere in the world which didn't fully qualify all its outgoing addresses. Now, I'm perfectly willing to believe that there are plenty of such sendmail.cf's out there. Mine, personally, isn't one of them. I don't want my software trying to protect me from myself, and I see this as basically against one of UNIX's philosophical foundations. As I said before, it pisses me off. Not to mention that I can't do what I consider the Right Thing in my sendmail.cf without having UCB Mail break on me. So will anything break if I go and change it? Anyone wanna help me lobby to have it changed for good? Mark -- Mark Sirota - University of Rochester, Rochester, NY Internet: msir@cc.rochester.edu Bitnet: msir_ss@uordbv.bitnet UUCP: ...!rochester!ur-cc!msir
diamant@hpfclp.SDE.HP.COM (John Diamant) (02/20/89)
> I just found a misfeature with UCB Mail. If remote mail comes in (i.e. > mail from a remote site, with a From: line of the form > remote-user@remote-host > and your sendmail.cf strips the hostname off of local addresses, so that the > To: reads just > local-user [...] > and the local user does a replyall in UCB Mail, then the resulting To: > line will be > local-user@remote-host remote-user@remote-host > I find this unacceptable. It would seem that UCB mail is trying to be > intelligent; that is, it's assuming that remote-host may have been dumb > and not fully qualified it's addresses, so it tries to recreate it for you. Sorry to disagree with you, but you are the one violating the mail standards. You've taken an RFC-822 compliant mail address and broken it. The user agent has the right to expect a RFC compliant address in the headers. What it does with a non-compliant one is undefined, of course. You can argue back and forth as to what it should do in this corner case, but the primary error is in having your sendmail.cf break the RFC-822 address. While you could probably argue that RFC-822 is only required between hosts (as defined in the scope section of RFC-822), if you expect to work with mailers designed to operate on RFC-822 headers (MH, UCB Mail, etc), you can't just randomly diverge from 822 format and expect them to comply. The standard doesn't require internal formats to match RFC-822, but expect to require mailers specifically designed for the alternate format if you chose to diverge. If you are trying to do what I suspect you are (avoid unnecessary local delivery between equivalent hosts), you should have your configuration recognize that all hosts in a particular set are equivalent and may be delivered locally (and you could even substitute the name of the mail hub for the local node if you wanted). John Diamant Software Engineering Systems Division Hewlett-Packard Co. ARPA Internet: diamant@hpfclp.sde.hp.com Fort Collins, CO UUCP: {hplabs,hpfcla}!hpfclp!diamant
avolio@decuac.dec.com (Frederick M. Avolio) (02/20/89)
I strongly suggest that you -- anyone who wants control of how the Mail USer Agent deals with things -- get ahold of a user agent with source code such as ELM or GNU Emacs or something. (I am not endorsing any of these... I use MH... Oh! Or MH. :-)) Then you can control what it does. /usr/ucb/mail tries to be smart about unknown hosts as well as tries to handle BerkNet formats in addresses, which is also a mistake nowadays. I think. Fred
rsalz@bbn.com (Rich Salz) (02/21/89)
In <2609@decuac.DEC.COM> avolio@decuac.dec.com (Frederick M. Avolio) writes: >I strongly suggest that you -- anyone who wants control of how the Mail USer >Agent deals with things -- get ahold of a user agent with source code ... >Then you can control what it does. The source to the Berkeley Mail program (UCBMail, the basis for mailx, etc) is free of ATT code and is freely redistributable, as of the 4.3BSD-Tahoe release. You can get it from the FSF folks, or UUNET or -- if enough folks ask -- via comp.sources.unix. /rich $alz -- Please send comp.sources.unix-related mail to rsalz@uunet.uu.net.
msir@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (Mark Sirota) (02/22/89)
In article <885@ur-cc.UUCP> I write: > I just found a misfeature with UCB Mail. If remote mail comes in (i.e. > mail from a remote site, with a From: line of the form > remote-user@remote-host > and your sendmail.cf strips the hostname off of local addresses, so that > the To: reads just > local-user > instead of > local-user@local-host > and the local user does a replyall in UCB Mail, then the resulting To: > line will be > local-user@remote-host remote-user@remote-host > > I find this unacceptable. It would seem that UCB mail is trying to be > intelligent; that is, it's assuming that remote-host may have been dumb > and not fully qualified it's addresses, so it tries to recreate it for you. > > Well, I don't want it to do that. I deliberately strip the local machine > name off of all addresses before local delivery, so the headers will never > contain the local host name. Well, I've gotten quite a large number of responses to this. Unfortunately, there seems to be no consensus. About half the people agree with me that UCB Mail is brain-damaged, and the other half think I'm brain-damaged for stripping local hostnames in the first place. Given that, I'm willing to give up the campaign to change UCB Mail (although I still think it's brain-damaged). Only one person was able to give me a persuasive reason not to strip local hostnames (hope you don't mind, Craig): In message <IY0LJDy00VsL86fHFj@andrew.cmu.edu> "Craig F. Everhart" <cfe+@andrew.cmu.edu> writes: | What you're doing seems reasonable at first, but there are oddball cases | that I wonder if you're handling correctly. I can think of re-sending and | forwarding (packaging onemessage inside the body of another) as example | user actions that often aren't handled in a correct manner when local host | names are stripped (or abbreviated),and I imagine that there are others. | Just to be clear, the problems I cite occur when a piece of mail is sent | locally, then that received piece of mail is re-sent or forwarded | elsewhere; the addresses in the headers aren't usually updated correctly. | What happens when some external recipient of such mail tries to use the | addresses in the headers of that mail? So, my inclination is to put the local hostname on *all* local addresses, even those that are completely local. For instance, if I mail joeuser on my-machine, the From: header will be "From: msir@my-machine", and the To: header will be "To: joeuser@my-machine". | These complications, and others I'm sure, are why RFC822 says that | exchanged mail needs to have fully-qualified host names. While I imagine | that you could fix up all these and other problems, most Internet sites | use RFC822 as their internal mail representation also, so that the act of | mail crossing between inside and outside isn't as complicated as relaying | mail between dissimilar maildomains. I ask the net: Is this true? Do "most Internet sites use RFC822 as their *internal* mail representation also"? Thanks for any and all opinions. Mark -- Mark Sirota - University of Rochester, Rochester, NY Internet: msir@cc.rochester.edu Bitnet: msir_ss@uordbv.bitnet UUCP: ...!rochester!ur-cc!msir
kgdykes@watmath.waterloo.edu (Ken Dykes) (02/22/89)
In article <918@ur-cc.UUCP> msir@cc.rochester.edu (Mark Sirota) writes: >I ask the net: Is this true? Do "most Internet sites use RFC822 as their >*internal* mail representation also"? I would HOPE so. A mail package I am responsible for in the Bull-HN world (Honeywell Bull) is basically rfc822 (and I am steering it to conformity) and we don't currently have anything to do with Internet! But there is the realization that sooner than later this product will be gatewayed to Internet, USENET and just about any other net people get their hands on. The way I see it, to survive the modern age you have only two choices in mail representation/handling. 1) rfc822 2) x.400 (and there is rfc987 for rational mappings between 822 and x400) Unecessarily doing translations on headers everytime you hit a gateway or yet-another-host-format is just screaming for silly little irritating problems like those mentioned (doing REPLY to address received via "forwards"). In general the fewer mappings a message is inflicted, the more likely it will contain rational information at the end-point. -Ken -- - Ken Dykes, Software Development Group, U.of.Waterloo Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3G1 kgdykes@watmath.uucp kgdykes@water.bitnet kgdykes@waterloo.csnet kgdykes@watmath.uwaterloo.ca kgdykes@watmath.edu {backbone}!watmath!kgdykes
kurt@ibmarc.uucp (Kurt Shoens) (02/22/89)
In article <885@ur-cc.UUCP> msir@cc.rochester.edu (Mark Sirota) writes
about how UCB Mail rewrites addresses when doing reply. In particular,
unqualified addresses (those that do not include "@host") get the host of
the From: field tacked on today. Mark indicates that this behavior is
causing him problems and isn't necessary since all addresses in messages
from other sites are supposed to be qualified with the hostname.
Sounds like Mark is right. At the time UCB Mail was written, there WAS no
sendmail to rewrite outgoing addresses, so it was felt necessary to do
the editing on reply that is now causing the troubles. I doubt that
anything will break if Mark disables the address rewriting, as long as
all mail from outside the local host has qualified, internet style addresses.
In terms of the Right Thing thing, it feels wrong to me to have both
sendmail and Mail rewriting addresses; UCB Mail should stop doing so.
Kurt Shoens, IBM Almaden Research Center, ...!uunet!ibmarc!kurtkarl@triceratops.cis.ohio-state.edu (Karl Kleinpaste) (02/22/89)
msir@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (Mark Sirota) writes:
the other half think I'm
brain-damaged for stripping local hostnames in the first place.
Not braindamaged. Causing yourself excess pain, perhaps.
So, my inclination is to put the local hostname on *all* local addresses,
even those that are completely local. For instance, if I mail joeuser on
my-machine, the From: header will be "From: msir@my-machine", and the To:
header will be "To: joeuser@my-machine".
I would amend that (or possibly simply clarify what you meant) by
saying that you should include not just a hostname, but a full domain
spec, name@machine.cc.rochester.edu.
I ask the net: Is this true? Do "most Internet sites use RFC822 as their
*internal* mail representation also"?
I do here. A rising number of other sites around this university also
use my sendmail.cf as a base. I fully qualify anything and everything
as soon as possible. It reduces the number of headaches to be dealt
with later - I never have to worry about full qualification as I leave
my own domain, because it's already done, in S3.
--Karlsyd@dsinc.UUCP (Syd Weinstein) (02/23/89)
In article <918@ur-cc.UUCP> msir@cc.rochester.edu (Mark Sirota) writes: >I ask the net: Is this true? Do "most Internet sites use RFC822 as their >*internal* mail representation also"? As the coordinator of the Elm development group, I know of a large body of the Internet that uses Elm, and it tries to be RFC822 complient. Whether we succeed is open to debate :-) and bug fixes :-) :-). -- ===================================================================== Sydney S. Weinstein, CDP, CCP Elm Coordinator Datacomp Systems, Inc. Voice: (215) 947-9900 {allegra,bpa,vu-vlsi}!dsinc!syd FAX: (215) 938-0235
agnew@trwrc.UUCP (Robert A. Agnew) (02/23/89)
In article <918@ur-cc.UUCP> msir@cc.rochester.edu (Mark Sirota) writes: >I ask the net: Is this true? Do "most Internet sites use RFC822 as their >*internal* mail representation also"? Speaking for myself -- Sure We Do!!!!! Just try wirting the nameserver files for a sizeable site (2000 mail users) that doesn't and you might agree. Otherwise one tends to have the kind of problems that your're having.
edb@fai.UUCP (Edward Bunch) (02/24/89)
In article <326@trwrc.UUCP> agnew@trwrc.UUCP (Robert A. Agnew) writes: >In article <918@ur-cc.UUCP> msir@cc.rochester.edu (Mark Sirota) writes: >I ask the net: Is this true? Do "most Internet sites use RFC822 as their >*internal* mail representation also"? You bet. I think that all sites that hope to communicate with the Internet or Usenet should use RFC822. Why throw away information on purpose. I just finished fixing Sun's sendmail.subsidiary.cf so that it does this. S11 now uses $j in place of $w. Edward A. Bunch UUCP: {uunet,amdahl,sun}!fai!edb Fujitsu America, Inc. DOMAIN: edb@fai.com Computer Support and Administation.
msir@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (Mark Sirota) (02/24/89)
In article <918@ur-cc.UUCP> I write: > I ask the net: Is this true? Do "most Internet sites use RFC822 as their > *internal* mail representation also"? Well, from a truly impressive number of responses both posted and mailed, it would look as though the majority recommends using RFC822 format internally. I will be changing my sendmail.cf's to do this. Thanks to everyone who participated. I would like to restate the following responses, just because they say it so well. First, Craig Everhart makes it clear why you should use RFC822 internally, and secondly, Kurt Shoens gives a persuading reason why UCB Mail (or any other MUA) should not rewrite addresses. In message <IY0LJDy00VsL86fHFj@andrew.cmu.edu> "Craig F. Everhart" <cfe+@andrew.cmu.edu> writes: | I can think of re-sending and forwarding (packaging onemessage inside the | body of another) as example user actions that often aren't handled in a | correct manner when local host names are stripped (or abbreviated), and I | imagine that there are others. Just to be clear, the problems I cite | occur when a piece of mail is sent locally, then that received piece of | mail is re-sent or forwarded elsewhere; the addresses in the headers | aren't usually updated correctly. What happens when some external | recipient of such mail tries to use the addresses in the headers of that | mail? In article <701@ks.UUCP> kurt@ibmarc.UUCP (Kurt Shoens) writes: > Sounds like Mark is right. At the time UCB Mail was written, there WAS no > sendmail to rewrite outgoing addresses, so it was felt necessary to do the > editing on reply that is now causing the troubles. In terms of the Right > Thing thing, it feels wrong to me to have both sendmail and Mail rewriting > addresses; UCB Mail should stop doing so. -- Mark Sirota - University of Rochester, Rochester, NY Internet: msir@cc.rochester.edu Bitnet: msir_ss@uordbv.bitnet UUCP: ...!rochester!ur-cc!msir