rsalz@bbn.com (Rich Salz) (06/27/90)
In <10128@ogicse.ogc.edu> schaefer@ogicse.ogc.edu (Barton E. Schaefer) writes: |Joe User (joe@joes.domain.org) has in his .mailrc (or .mushrc) file: | alias everybody fred mary tom peter@far.away.edu \ | henry@farther.off.com uunet!nowhere!jane |If he sets $no_expand in mush and gives the command | mail everybody |mush will send out a message with the headers (among others) | From: joe@joes.domain.org | To: everybody It is totally wrong to send out mail with an invalid address. If you must provide a "no_expand" sort of facility, leave OFF the to address and treat everyone as Bcc recipients. /rich $alz -- Please send comp.sources.unix-related mail to rsalz@uunet.uu.net. Use a domain-based address or give alternate paths, or you may lose out.
Craig_Everhart@TRANSARC.COM (06/27/90)
> Excerpts from netnews.comp.mail.misc: 26-Jun-90 Re: user's aliases on > the T.. Tom Neff@bfmny0.BFM.COM (307) > But what about the To: line as seen by RECIPIENTS of a mailing list? There are lots of formats in use. Ones distributed with AMDS can have the form To: +dist+/this/is/a/dist/list/file@do.main.name or, if the dist list is published, whatever its alias is: To: my-foobar-list@do.main.name These are all reply-able addresses, in that you could send mail to either of them @do.main.name, and the mail would be redistributed. > No list I've ever subscribed to sends me mail with headers like > To: Pederasty-Enthusiasts:;@BISHOP.EDU Note that this is in fact illegal; the correct form omits the domain name, so it's To: Pederasty-Enthusiasts:; This form is intentionally(?) opaque: you can't send mail to it and have it redistributed. If there were any recipients listed, they'd individually have domain names, so the result could look like To: Pederasty-Enthusiasts: joe@foo, jane@bar, jack@hill; I once maintained a mail UA that would abbreviate such lists, no matter how long, for header typeout as To: Pederasty-Enthusiasts: which all of its users found pretty convenient at the time. > instead it usually looks like > To: Multiple recipients of list PEDERAST-L <PEDERAST-L@BISHOP.EDU> There's nothing wrong with this address, either. RFC822 says it's OK: the text outside the <> address doesn't have to be a person name. And it's replyable, in that mail sent to that address will be redistributed to the list. Craig
rad@puffin.uss.tek.com (Richard Doty) (06/28/90)
I think mailing lists are quite interesting, and after reading through RFC1123 I'd like to make my site do the "right thing". Trouble is, I'm a little unsure what that is. I grepped through the Berkeley cf files that came with 5.64, and also through the gatech collection, and could find no place where anything _local_ was done with a list. My hunch is that one uses a special local mailer definition to provide the unique list semantics. Could someone please post (or e-mail) a few details on how this is actually accomplished? Thanks, Richard Doty rad@puffin.uss.tek.com
david@twg.com (David S. Herron) (07/06/90)
In article <10128@ogicse.ogc.edu> schaefer@ogicse.ogc.edu (Barton E. Schaefer) writes: >In article <7329@gollum.twg.com> david@twg.com (David S. Herron) writes: >} In article <136802@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> argv@turnpike.Eng.Sun.COM (Dan Heller) writes: >} >Sometimes people send mail to an entire list of people with the >} >intent that the recipients should *not* be able to reply to everyone, >} >just the original author. ... >} The RFCs (822 to be exact) specify a form >} list-name: ; >} to be used for the purpose you're talking about. >} Does mush generate this when $no_expand is set? ... >Joe User (joe@joes.domain.org) has in his .mailrc (or .mushrc) file: > > alias everybody fred mary tom peter@far.away.edu \ > henry@farther.off.com uunet!nowhere!jane > >If he sets $no_expand in mush and gives the command > > mail everybody > >mush will send out a message with the headers (among others) > > From: joe@joes.domain.org > To: everybody EEG erm.. that is indistinguishable from an un-domained address. I personally feel it is a very very bad thing to EVER generate mail with un-domained addresses in the header. I know that within some local net people generally have mail floating around that doesn't have domains attached to the Mail IDs ... and that's fine so long as the mail stays in the local net. But once it escapes, and it may well escape without passing through a gateway which cleans up and domainifies the header, then it will only cause confusion to people replaying to a header with all these addresses which look like they're local. For instance: the security mailing list at "zardoz" sends out a normal digest format with the headers inside the digest being in UUCP format relative to zardoz. I use mh for reading mail and use the burst command to burst digests. So now I have a bunch of messages in the zardoz-security-list folder with unusable headers. Even if the digest had passed through a gateway machine which cleans the headers it wouldn't have gone into the body and cleaned up the headers in the body. Ergo: Always generate mail with full domain names in the header or in some other way avoid strenuously making it look as if the names in the headers are local. >Yes, I agree this is imperfect, and we have considered changes. It >isn't clear what the translation into 822 syntax should be; do we >make it > > To: everybody:; Sure.. Some other places do this. CSNET, for instance, recently started using this format for sending out the CSNET Forum type stuff. RFC-822 describes groups as so: 6.2.6. MULTIPLE MAILBOXES ... A set of individuals may wish to receive mail as a single unit (i.e., a distribution list). The <group> construct permits specification of such a list. Recipient mailboxes are speci- fied within the bracketed part (":" - ";"). A copy of the transmitted message is to be sent to each mailbox listed. This standard does not permit recursive specification of groups within groups. And an example A.2.4. Committee activity, with one author George is a member of a committee. He wishes to have any replies to his message go to all committee members. From: George Jones <Jones@Host.Net> Sender: Jones@Host Reply-To: The Committee: Jones@Host.Net, Smith@Other.Org, Doe@Somewhere-Else; Elsewhere it says that the list need not be present. In other words.. this group:; format is meant for the exact situation which the "alias" in mush and/or ucbmail covers. I'd propose two commands and/or variables use_group_syntax list_group_members -- <- David Herron, an MMDF weenie, <david@twg.com> <- Formerly: David Herron -- NonResident E-Mail Hack <david@ms.uky.edu> <- <- Sign me up for one "I survived Jaka's Story" T-shirt!