Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!sharkey!mudos!mju
From: mju@mudos.ann-arbor.mi.us (Marc Unangst)
Newsgroups: news.sysadmin
Subject: Re: mail headers
Message-ID: <248.244422A4@mudos.ann-arbor.mi.us>
Date: 13 Apr 89 04:18:21 GMT
Organization: A neat desk is a sign of a crazy person.
Lines: 26

In article <627@dtscp1.UUCP>, scott@dtscp1.UUCP (Scott Barman) writes:

 >In article <11470@s.ms.uky.edu> david@ms.uky.edu (David Herron -- One of 
 >the vertebrae) writes:
 >>But *do* *not* suggest that we take away the Received: headers!
 >
 >Why?  Someone please explain to me what purpose do they serve besides making
 >it more difficult to get to the real mail at the end.  I am more interested
 >in the message not what software, version number, or even system the note
 >passed through to get here.

The Received: headers come in VERY handy when your mail hasn't gotten from
point A to point B, and you'd like to know why.  They're often useful
in discovering sites that do "active" rerouting (and thus enabling you
to route around them if it's a problem).

Yes, they're primarily a debugging aid, and they're not needed in most
cases.  But in those few cases where they're necessary, it's nice to
have them.  You might try using a mailreader that lets you configure
which header lines you want to see.
--  
Marc Unangst
UUCP          : mju@mudos.ann-arbor.mi.us
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