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From: PKARP@SRI-IU.ARPA (Peter Karp)
Newsgroups: net.mail.headers
Subject: Re: A suggestion for preventing machine mail loops
Message-ID: <538@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 11-Dec-85 03:35:40 EST
Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.538
Posted: Wed Dec 11 03:35:40 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 13-Dec-85 07:34:26 EST
Sender: news@brl-tgr.ARPA
Lines: 23

I think I must be missing something in this discussion of automatically
generated replies.

You don't want to use a line like:
	Reply-To: <>
to stop mailers from returning undeliverable messages.  This is not
the address that mailers (or programs) are supposed to use for this
purpose, and in fact this address SHOULD have some value (particularly
for program-generated messages) so that people receiving the messages
know how to contact a person responsible for the program's behavior.

In fact mailers are supposed to return undeliverable messages to the
address specified in the SMTP "MAIL FROM" command.  This address is
normally written to a "Return-Path:" field in the header upon actual
delivery in a person's mailbox.  Programs which generate messages should
have the brains to tell their outgoing mailer to use a null address
in the "MAIL FROM" command - particularly when these programs are
mailers which are in fact returning a message to its sender.

I thought this is all laid out fairly clearly in 821 and 822.

Peter
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