Re: diagnosing smail
kotsya@u.washington.edu (David Stern) writes:
> On Fri, 27 Feb 1998 11:08:26 EST, Daniel Martin wrote:
> > My interpretation is that smail only makes use of the from_field
> > variable if incoming mail has no "From:" or "Sender:" fields already;
> > further, if there is a From: field already, then smail inserts a
> > "Sender:" field using the from_field information only if the
> > pre-existing From: field doesn't match what smail would have written
> > with from_field.
>
> IOW: If I'm replying to a message, the header writing will be different
> than if I send a new message? I'd not fully considered this previously.
No - what this means is that smail uses the from_field variable to
fill in a "From:" header if a "From:" header doesn't exist. If a
"From:" header does exist, but is different from what from_field would
have put in, and a "Sender:" field doesn't yet exist, then smail uses
from_field to fill in the Sender: header. At least, this is my
reading of the man pages and the way things should work; from_field
should be used as a backup to fill in headers that aren't there in
mail smail has to deliver (either to the outside or to local
mailboxes).
Testing on my own setup seems to indicate that smail doesn't add a
Sender: line (so long as no header-rewriting is in effect); Also, it
seems to do slightly odd things to incoming smtp mail that has no
From: line.
> IOW: I need the Sender: line because my local hostname is not my isp's?
Right.
> The sender line is good, because it tells where I'm connected when the
> message was sent, but does it make sense for my mail to be
> accepted/rejected based on a temporary hostname? This is what my isp
> told me had occurred.
Looking at earlier messages of yours, there were two Sender: headers
showing up - and one of those headers had two "@" signs in it. That
could have thrown some mailers into enough of a fit to reject the
message.
<snip>
> was good, but now that my Sender: line is bad, my From: line is being
> rejected. This might be a good time to ask: Which form is best?
No idea. Any mailer which rejects one of the forms should probably be
considered broken (just be certain that the mailer in question is
rejecting your mail because of some headers using that form).
> > I think there are historic reasons (before from_field was used for
> > "Sender:" fields) for having it begin with "From:".
>
> IOW: the from_field code always modifies the From: line?
No; what I said above. I think that at one point the from_field code
was intended to only modify From:, but that later the author decided
that in some cases it could modify Sender: as well. However, so as to
not break already existing config. files... (you see the rest).
That said, my own testing indicates that prehaps the author was not
successful in making smail's from_field code modify Sender: headers.
> So why did the man page indicate the from_field wrote the From: or the
> Sender: line?
Wishful thinking?
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