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From: sob@neuro1.UUCP (Stan Barber)
Newsgroups: net.mail
Subject: Re: Mail routing -- problems showing up
Message-ID: <548@neuro1.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 12-Aug-85 04:50:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: neuro1.548
Posted: Mon Aug 12 04:50:00 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 18-Aug-85 21:19:06 EDT
References: <3018@nsc.UUCP> <2875@topaz.ARPA> <4787@mit-eddie.UUCP> <16110@watmath.UUCP>
Reply-To: sob@neuro1.UUCP (Stan Barber)
Distribution: net
Organization: Neurophysiology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Tx
Lines: 38

In article <16110@watmath.UUCP> atbowler@watmath.UUCP (Alan T. Bowler [SDG]) writes:
>These potential capabilities seem to be ignored in all the  discussion.
>Is this because:
>  1) I am interpreting RFC822 incorrectly, and the capabilities are not there?

I think you are reading it correctly, but some people who read this list
are not familiar with it.

>  2) SENDMAIL can't do either of these things, or no one has yet figured
>     out how to make it do this?

My sendmail configuration parses both just fine. The problem is that
not everyones does and no one is quite sure how much "rewriting" should
be done. In your first case, [<@site1,@site2,@site3:user@site4>] I would
want the mailer to rewrite to <@site2,@site3:user@site4> and send it to the
mailer that would send it to site1 hopeing that site1 could also cope with thi
syntax. Other might want it rewritten to user%site4%site3%site2@site1.
Still others might want site1!site2!site3!site4!user.
The latter can be parsed by all uucp sites, neither of the others can be
guarenteed to be useable. A uniform syntax would make this a lot easier,
but no one can agree what that syntax is beyond the original bang notation.

The second one ["user!site"@gatesite.domain] assumes that gatesite can
correctly parse user!site.... this allows the addressor to use whatever
knowledge s/he has about the gatesite or perhaps the network it is the
gateway for. Sendmail cannot interfere with this and therefore
should (and does in in the configuration I have) not alter what is in
the quotes EVEN IF IT IS WRONG, and just route to the gatesite.

>  3) No one has ever written a full parser for RFC822 type addresses? 

I think there are more than one. I think part of the problem is 
the few gray areas in RFC822.

-- 
Stan		uucp:{ihnp4!shell,rice}!neuro1!sob     Opinions expressed
Olan		ARPA:sob@rice.arpa		       here are ONLY mine &
Barber		CIS:71565,623   BBS:(713)660-9262      noone else's.