Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!rutgers!husc6!seismo!mimsy!cvl!umd5!dzoey From: dzoey@umd5.UUCP Newsgroups: comp.mail.headers,comp.mail.misc Subject: return paths Message-ID: <1442@umd5> Date: Sun, 15-Feb-87 17:56:12 EST Article-I.D.: umd5.1442 Posted: Sun Feb 15 17:56:12 1987 Date-Received: Mon, 16-Feb-87 03:47:18 EST Distribution: na Organization: University of Maryland, College Park Lines: 57 Xref: watmath comp.mail.headers:140 comp.mail.misc:79 [ Are there really sites still out there with line eater problems? ] Greetings, I have a little return path dilemma. I want to send mail (SMTP) from my PC to other sites. However, I don't know how to identify myself to other sites. Currently, I say 'HELO [my-internet-address]'. This is okay because everyone pretty much treats 'HELO ' as devoid of meaning anyway. The problem comes about when I want to tell the host who the mail is from. Ideally, what I'd like to do is lie and say MAIL FROM:. Maildrop is not my PC, since my pc doesn't want to spend all it's time running as a SMTP server. Maildrop is a host that is aware of the network a large percentage of the time and is the place where I read my mail (in our case, we use POP to retrieve mail from the maildrop host to our PC's and read it there, but you get the picture...) The problem is that some SMTP servers will not let you lie about who you are, and will toss the mail away if it thinks you are bogus. So, in a bit of a panic, we tried MAIL FROM, which is ugly. If the SMTP server wants to send me an advisory back, all it has is the PC's address. Since the PC does not run an SMTP server, it can never receive the advisory. So, periodically, the SMTP server that is trying to send an advisory keeps trying to open a connection. I don't know what it does when it can't open a connection to send an advisory, or how long it will try to do so, but this isn't the behavior I want. So, our mail guru (Hi Zben!) suggested a null return path. E.g. MAIL FROM:<>. But, some sites do not accept that as valid. We have a hacked up Sys5r2 machine upstairs that wouldn't accept that (I don't know if this is the case for all of Sys5r2, or it's just the hacks) and a site out at ucla running MVS would not accept that. Also, I'm afraid I'm going to break someones SMTP server by throwing all those domain literals around. So, what do I do? Suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Appologies for the cross posting, but I wasn't sure for which group this question was best suited. Joe Herman dzoey@terminus.umd.edu dzoey@umdd.bitnet P.S. In case it wasn't clear, the way that we have implemented it as a stop gap is to say MAIL FROM:<"Joe Herman"@[128.8.1.63]> (ick). P.P.S. This question only applies to the SMTP transaction. We are able to successfully mung the headers to do what we want, so people who want to reply to our mail generate the mail drop address. It's the out-of-band info that's a problem right now. -- "Everything is wonderful until you know something about it."