Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!cs.utexas.edu!bcm!tmc.edu!sob From: sob@tmc.edu (Stan Barber) Newsgroups: news.software.nntp Subject: Re: NNTPD hates Message-IDs with TWO '@'s in them. (BIG log file attached to this posting) Message-ID: <6021@gazette.bcm.tmc.edu> Date: 16 Jun 91 18:33:34 GMT References: <1991Jun13.043253.20660@zoo.toronto.edu> <6014@gazette.bcm.tmc.edu> <1991Jun16.063341.13609@kithrup.COM> Sender: usenet@bcm.tmc.edu Organization: Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX Lines: 32 Nntp-Posting-Host: tmc.edu In article <1991Jun16.063341.13609@kithrup.COM> sef@kithrup.COM (Sean Eric Fagan) writes: >Is it the intenet of this section of the RFC to mean that a Message-ID >*must* conform to RFC-822? To me, it is ambiguous: it can mean that this >section of the header need not conform to 822, but if you want it to, it >should do (which I deleted). I take the meaning of the RFC as a whole and avoid looking at a section all by itself. I believe the intent of the RFC is as is stated in the opening section where it plainly sez that if this RFC disagrees with RFC 822, RFC 822 (as modified by RFC 1123) is correct. It even goes on to say that it is more restrictive than RFC 822. It makes no sense to me to assume that an RFC would define a field to be less restrictive than the definition in another RFC claimed to be less restrictive. I believe the section on the Message-ID was placed there to insure that writers of news software would know that Message-IDs could be of any length and always had angle brackets around them. It is not an attempt by the RFC to set a NEW standard for Message-IDs, but rather to document usage of the field at the time the RFC was written. As an aside, I would note that BNEWS always uses the format for any articles it adds message-ids to when those articles are first posted. If "site" is a valid domain name (.UUCP notwithstanding), then it is a valid message-id. BNEWS doesn't allow this format to be altered unless you alter the source code itself. CNEWS provides a shell script the generates the message-id. I believe that many people have decided to alter the format of the standard CNEWS message-id because it's pretty easy to hack on shell scripts. -- Stan internet: sob@bcm.tmc.edu Director, Networking Olan uucp: rutgers!bcm!sob and Systems Support Barber Opinions expressed are only mine. Baylor College of Medicine