Boston Linux & Unix (BLU) Home | Calendar | Mail Lists | List Archives | Desktop SIG | Hardware Hacking SIG
Wiki | Flickr | PicasaWeb | Video | Maps & Directions | Installfests | Keysignings
Linux Cafe | Meeting Notes | Linux Links | Bling | About BLU

BLU Discuss list archive


[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Request for assistance



-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Chris Meyer <cmeyer at MIT.EDU> writes:

> MAIL FROM: <youraddress at somewhere.net>      [From: header, obviously]
> RCPT TO: <youraddress at somewhere.net>      [To: line, obviously; note 
> that you just type the address in both of the above as-is, no brackets 
> or anything]

Those are indeed the correct SMTP commands, but your comments are 
incorrect. This is the SMTP envelope, and it has absolutely nothing 
to do with message headers. The message headers exist at the next 
higher layer in the network stack above the smtp layer. The layers 
are separate for a reason: in networking, "simple and robust" is the 
polar opposite of "complicated and brittle". Mixing the levels by 
turning the envelope addresses into the official header addresses 
would be asking for trouble.

When sendmail accepts a message to deliver (i.e., when it didn't reject 
the message), it will check for a number of required headers and try 
to compensate for any that are missing. If "From" or "To" are missing, 
sendmail will include the envelope addresses as "Apparently-From" and 
"Apparently-To", respectively. The others that come immediately to 
mind are "Message-id" (added if it's missing), "Date" (likewise),
"Sender" (if the envelope mail-from differs from the "From" header), 
and "Received" (always added, to build an audit trail of the delivery 
path).


- --
John Abreau / Executive Director, Boston Linux & Unix
Email jabr at blu.org / WWW http://www.abreau.net / PGP-Key-ID 0xD5C7B5D9
PGP-Key-Fingerprint 72 FB 39 4F 3C 3B D6 5B E0 C8 5A 6E F1 2C BE 99


-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.0.7 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Exmh version 2.5 07/13/2001

iQCVAwUBPf/mmVV9A5rVx7XZAQIIbgQA1HGaLs4Z92XUGMeMm+rKnopZskj46m5F
CLOudL+4w6buqst2ZENvparXkEyRD/pWDLW4JUaeFzznds8gpO7ce8I9sWobuBGz
p1qyQ9lagfI8V47rMMa45bURGINKw4LEhwgsU+DB1yqVRs+zU6AcObEGXYkuMvat
w4KRTnjXjT4=
=iYVA
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----





BLU is a member of BostonUserGroups
BLU is a member of BostonUserGroups
We also thank MIT for the use of their facilities.

Valid HTML 4.01! Valid CSS!



Boston Linux & Unix / webmaster@blu.org