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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!rutgers!husc6!seismo!columbia!chris
From: chris@columbia.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.mail.headers,comp.mail.uucp
Subject: Re: more about autorouting
Message-ID: <4270@columbia.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 29-Jan-87 02:26:14 EST
Article-I.D.: columbia.4270
Posted: Thu Jan 29 02:26:14 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 1-Feb-87 05:40:21 EST
References: <14396@amdcad.UUCP> <4611@mit-eddie.MIT.EDU> <837@astrovax.UUCP>
Reply-To: chris@columbia.edu (Chris Maio)
Organization: Columbia University CS Department
Lines: 23
Xref: watmath comp.mail.headers:123 comp.mail.uucp:213

Anyone who wants to improve mail forwarding between the UUCP and RFC822 worlds
should start by reading the RFC822 spec.  Among other things, it becomes
obvious why <>'s are necessary in route-addrs, the reason for using commas
instead of colons to separate hosts in a route, etc.  Too many people are
trying to get the "look and feel" of RFC822 without paying attention to the
details, and if you don't follow the spec, you may do more harm than good.

I strongly discourage people from using uucp paths to construct RFC822
route-addrs, particularly because the uucp path components are generally not
going to be "registered", and if they're not, you just can't build a legal
route-addr.  Also, if you use a stock sendmail, you can't just turn a uucp path
into a route-addr since to be legal, route-addrs must be preceded by a
"phrase".  Furthermore, a proper RFC822 user agent will ignore any explicit
route in the From: header and just use the addr-spec component (the portion
following the ":") when generating replies.

One alternative to trying to build route-addrs out of uucp paths is to rewrite
the paths by appending your RFC822 domain name *and* prepending your uucp
sitename, so host!user becomes princeton!host!user@princeton.edu.  This is
perfectly valid RFC822, and unless someone is misusing smail, replies should
come back to you one way or another, at which point you just have to make sure
you strip your name off at both ends.
							Chris