Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!andrew.cmu.edu!cfe+
From: cfe+@andrew.cmu.edu (Craig F. Everhart)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.sendmail
Subject: Re: route-addrs in UUCP paths?
Message-ID: <IXMp9oy00VsL4257d0@andrew.cmu.edu>
Date: 24 Oct 88 15:55:32 GMT
References: <9742@swan.ulowell.edu>,
	<968@psuhcx.psu.edu>
Organization: Carnegie Mellon
Lines: 30
In-Reply-To: <968@psuhcx.psu.edu>

> *Excerpts from ext.nn.comp.mail.sendmail: 23-Oct-88 Re: route-addrs in UUCP*
> *paths? Bill Fenner@psuhcx.psu.e (1584)*
> how about
> R$*@$+,$*     $1!$2$3         #take care of ,'s
> R$*@$+:$-     $1!$2!$3        #take care of :'s
> actually, don't most people do
> R@$+,$+               @$1:$2
> or something to make route-addr parsing easier?  In that case, just
> remove the first @ and change :@'s and :'s to !'s.  ooh, wattapain.
> R@$+:$*               $1:$2
> R$*:@$*               $1!$2
> R$*:$*                $1!$2
> I'm sure that's not quite right... I'm doing this off the top of my head.
> Anyone care to correct me?  Suggest another way to do it?
I admit--I'm stunned that somebody would try to do this.  RFC822 source routes
and UUCP paths are not the same!  Why would you ever try to mix them?
(Especially if some other mail agent has mixed them up already, so you can't
tell what was intended.  Bounce the mail and/or forward it to the postmaster of
the site that's apparently screwing it up.  You can't hope to automatically
untangle the webs they've woven.)

Standards aside, zillions of people put unregistered hosts in source routes.
Just because you might recognize a domain name in the middle of a path or a
source route doesn't mean that your mailer will recognize all possible
domain-looking names that will be passing your way in the future.

In short, truncating a source route is a bad heuristic.

                Craig Everhart
                Andrew message system