Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site hou3c.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!hou3c!MRC@SU-SCORE.ARPA From: MRC@SU-SCORE.ARPA (Mark Crispin) Newsgroups: net.mail.headers Subject: Re: smtp, errors and delivery Message-ID: <368@hou3c.UUCP> Date: Mon, 5-Mar-84 16:23:51 EST Article-I.D.: hou3c.368 Posted: Mon Mar 5 16:23:51 1984 Date-Received: Wed, 7-Mar-84 07:38:57 EST Sender: ka@hou3c.UUCP (Kenneth Almquist) Lines: 20 To: Rudy.Nedved@CMU-CS-A.ARPA Cc: Header-People@MIT-MC.ARPA In-Reply-To: Message from "Rudy.Nedved@CMU-CS-A" of Mon 5 Mar 84 11:16:00-PST Postal-Address: 725 Mariposa Ave. #103; Mountain View, CA 94041 Phone: (415) 497-1407 (Stanford); (415) 968-1052 (residence) Rudy - The problem is that it is a "de facto standard" to reject MAIL FROM: commands for the slightest bogosity (even if the bogon turns out to be at the SMTP server's end!). A number of SMTP servers reject a-d-l's, for example. Still others reject mail from "unknown hosts" when the problem is that the SMTP server's host table is out of date. Yet another problem is that many (most?) SMTP servers reject bracketed host names. There are a number of "nameless" TOPS-20s which talk TCP/IP and use their bracketed address forms as a name (e.g. [1.2.3.4]). This is valid according to the standard and TOPS-20 fully implements it, but try convincing a large number of SMTP servers of that!! I won't even go into the details of how to reply or return messages in these cases (other than "implement the standard"). -- Mark -- -------