Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!dino!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!tank!gargoyle!chinet!les From: les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell) Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc Subject: Re: is uunet breaking your headers? Message-ID: <1990Jun1.213148.21808@chinet.chi.il.us> Date: 1 Jun 90 21:31:48 GMT References: <2752.26638923@mccall.com> Organization: Chinet - Chicago Public Access UNIX Lines: 34 In article karl_kleinpaste@cis.ohio-state.edu writes: >However, if I receive mail which shows OWHN!user@F.Q.D.N and I am >about to route it out of here as UUCP mail, that syntax cannot be >assured of working, because "dumb" UUCP sites cannot be counted on to >obey RFC822's requirement of @-over-! precedence. So I rewrite >"OWHN!user@F.Q.D.N" as "F.Q.D.N!OWHN!user" in the From: line, and the >From_ line (for SMTP Mail From:<>) is modified (by a combination of >sendmail and smail-2.5) to be "osu-cis!F.Q.D.N!OWHN!user," thus giving >a syntax which even a dumb UUCP site can cope with. If the OWHN!user@F.Q.D.N happens to have come from a uucp site, there's a pretty good chance that it is already screwed up, especially if OWHN happens to be the same name as one of the uucp sites in the path. Anyway, dumb uucp mailers normally reply by reversing the From_ line and never look at From:, so that is rarely a problem. One thing that *is* a problem is trying to do a reply to all the recepients of the message from a dumb uucp site. Mailx uses 'r', Elm uses 'g', Mush uses replyall, AT&T PMX-mailers use (Ans) (All) to try to interpret the To: and Cc: lines, and they all produce fairly bizzare results. The most likely thing to work (short of tossing the uucp path concept entirely), is to reverse the From_ path and stick it in front of the other addresses, then collapse any obvious duplications ( A!A A!B!A). Unfortunately, this doesn't work well if user@host or domain!user notation is used. For example if you mail from machine A to B!C!user1 with a Cc: to user2@C.uucp (assume routing software on A), user1's group reply to user2 on the same machine might be addressed as B!A!user2@C.uucp. If all the machines do ! paths uucp style, this can be delivered, but it may be sent across the country to get back to the same machine. Les Mikesell les@chinet.chi.il.us