Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!watmath!att!cuuxb!mmengel
From: mmengel@cuuxb.ATT.COM (Marc W. Mengel)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc
Subject: Re: Rmail <path>
Message-ID: <3951@cuuxb.ATT.COM>
Date: 18 Aug 89 18:21:42 GMT
References: <0344.AA0344@julie>
Reply-To: mmengel@cuuxb.UUCP (Marc W. Mengel)
Distribution: comp
Organization: AT&T-DSD, System Engineering for Resellers, Lisle IL
Lines: 62

In article <0344.AA0344@julie> mcr@julie.UUCP (Michael Richardson) writes:

>
>  Historically, rmail was invoked with a `user' name. If it has bangs in
>it, we get the next host and (assuming it is the L.sys/Systems- (*) ) invoke,
>uux - "<next-host>!rmail <rest-of-path>".
>
>  Now, since one purpose of this mod is to be able to recognise and deal
>with domain style names (FQDN would also be neat), I'm wondering
>what to do with the path that is passed?
>(*) - this is where passive re-routing would come in.
...
>
>  Now, next the question arises --- if all my outside connections
>are in the form of uucp connections and are running standard stuff,
>they are going to pass me a bang path on the command line. Will
>there be a To: line? Can I depend on it? Will is necessarily relate
>to the bang path?

	Old fashioned uucp mail systems have a habit of sending
	files that look like:
	+--------
	|From joe....
	| Hi there
	+---------
	which get forwarded, etc. and turn into
	+---------
	|From uucp
	|>From joe
	| Hi there
	+---------
	which is to say, they have no To: line, no From: line,
	etc.  Therefore, if you're an rmail, you should believe
	your rmail argument as to where to send the mail.

	If rmail is given an address of the form foo!bar@baz.silly.name
	it is clearly ambiguous, (that is, should it be sent to
	baz.silly.name or foo next?) but most mailers I have seen
	are configured to give '@' higher precedence than '!', thereby
	giving the next rmail in the delivery process a '!' only name.

>  If a .ca subdomain is set up (The utai registry people tell that
>it will be possible. wimsey.bc.ca already exists) such as
>amiga.ottawa.on.ca, how will this affect the relationship between
>path and To:? Will mail that is forwarded come in as say ...!nrcaer!julie!amiga,
>but have a To: of mcr@julie.amiga.ottawa.on.ca ? (Of course, nrcaer
>would strip its component)

	probably.  Thats how mail comes in hereabouts at AT&T, the
	domain machine (arpa.att.com) gets mail for my machine
	(mmengel@cuuxb.att.com) and forwards it to att!cuuxb!mmengel.

>  Thanks. (BTW: No rabid re-routers to be found here!)

>  Michael Richardson                     Amiga



-- 
 Marc Mengel					mmengel@cuuxb.att.com
 						attmail!mmengel
 						...!{lll-crg|att}!cuuxb!mmengel