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From: kjones@talos.pm.com (Kyle Jones)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.sendmail
Subject: Re: fix for wideload headers
Message-ID: <1990Jul10.152320.6412@talos.pm.com>
Date: 10 Jul 90 15:23:20 GMT
References: <VIXIE.90Jul4011023@volition.pa.dec.com> <1990Jul9.142846.6422@hellgate.utah.edu>
Lines: 26

Paul Vixie writes:
 > Sendmail has a fixed buffer that it puts headers in; it's usually 2500
 > characters wide.  If you overflow it, various bad things happen, usually
 > starting with extra blank lines being inserted into your mail headers.

Jeff Forys writes:
 > I just wanted to point out that the aforementioned problem has been
 > fixed in Sendmail 5.64.  Long headers are now correctly truncated [*]
 > to MAXFIELD; headers are collected using a double-buffering scheme.
 > [...]
 > [*] Technically speaking, the "To:" header should never be
 > truncated!

I hope you meant long _lines_ are now correctly truncated.  SMTP
sets a limit on line length, but if a header is folded I don't
see why it need be truncated, barring virtual memory constraints.
Even inside RFC 821 (the SMTP specification) there is this
admonishment:

          ****************************************************
          *                                                  *
          *  TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT POSSIBLE, IMPLEMENTATION  *
          *  TECHNIQUES WHICH IMPOSE NO LIMITS ON THE LENGTH *
          *  OF THESE OBJECTS SHOULD BE USED.                *
          *                                                  *
          ****************************************************