Xref: utzoo news.admin:4185 news.sysadmin:1843 comp.mail.uucp:2472 Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!rutgers!mailrus!ulowell!page From: page@swan.ulowell.edu (Bob Page) Newsgroups: news.admin,news.sysadmin,comp.mail.uucp Subject: Rewriting From: lines Summary: don't Message-ID: <10510@swan.ulowell.edu> Date: 6 Dec 88 21:06:30 GMT References: <1227@vsi1.UUCP> <871@acer.stl.stc.co.uk> <944@dlhpedg.co.uk> <1296@ucsd.EDU> Reply-To: page@swan.ulowell.edu (Bob Page) Organization: University of Lowell, Computer Science Dept. Lines: 26 brian@ucsd.edu (Brian Kantor) wrote: >'pacbell' doesn't add its sitename to the "From:" line in mail, but does >add it to the "From " line. The system administrator at host 'pacbell' >claims he's doing the right thing. I think he's wrong. There it stands. You should never edit a From: line. Never. Most sendmail sites add their hostname to the front of the From: line, which is wrong for two reasons: - address info is *not* routing info. - not everybody does it! That means you get lines like: From host5!host4!host3!host2!host1!host!user From: host4!host1!host!user >There is no quick fix. You have been warned. The 'smail' package fixes this errant sendmail behavior. However it requires that mail admins believe From: munging is a bad thing, which is damn near impossible. Also, the latest available version of smail has enough problems for sites with complex configurations. Maybe smail 3.0 fixes everything but I haven't seen it yet, and I don't know about the IDA sendmail patches. ..Bob -- Bob Page, U of Lowell CS Dept. page@swan.ulowell.edu ulowell!page Have five nice days.