From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!npoiv!npois!cbosgd!mark Newsgroups: net.general Title: new mail syntax standard published Article-I.D.: cbosgd.2544 Posted: Fri Aug 20 10:26:18 1982 Received: Sat Aug 21 04:46:58 1982 Three new RFC's have been published on the ARPANET. They deal with the new mail standards. Their numbers are RFC 819 Internet Syntax (18 pages) RFC 821 SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) (68 pages) RFC 822 Header Format (replaces RFC 733) (47 pages) I am posting the short one, RFC 819, to net.sources. If there is sufficient interest, I will post the others (although 821 probably does not apply to our environment - it would apply to a local net or a long-haul full duplex reliable net such as the arpanet) or send them to interested people if there is a small number of such people. There is one error in 819 you should be aware of. Several examples use names like "alpha!beta!gamma!john.UUCP" which do not contain an "@" sign. Since all internet addresses are of the form "user@host", the dot should be changed to an at. I'm not making this change since it's not in the document as published, but readers should be aware of the error. I hope to see a timetable for conversion shortly. My understanding is that it is to be phased in gradually - first sites are supposed to understand but not generate the new syntax, then sites are supposed to understand both and generate the new, and eventually only care about the new syntax. An estimate is two months at each phase. Software to support the new syntax exists. If you are in Bell Labs or otherwise licensed for UNIX 5.0 (presumably this means Bell System only) I have a version of the 5.0 /bin/mail command that understands it and generates new RFC 822 headers. (It's the same one that went out for testing a month or so ago - no bugs were found.) If you are running Berkeley UNIX, the Berkeley sendmail program supports this syntax. (Sendmail isn't available to the general public yet but will be before anyone seriously urges conversion.) Both pieces of software are, of course, free. If you are running something else, some minor conversion will probably be necessary, but no serious problems are expected unless you have a home-grown mail system. I understand that the authors of MMDF and MH plan to support the new syntax, but I have nothing to do with that. At this point I urge all UUCP sites to understand the new syntax and to plan for conversion, but not yet to undertake actual conversion. The intent is that UUCP will use the simplification "user@host.uucp", at least initially. Mark Horton