Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!apple!oliveb!mipos3!pinkas From: pinkas@cadev5.intel.com (Israel Pinkas ~) Newsgroups: comp.mail.sendmail Subject: Re: Problem with ">From" in header Message-ID:Date: 28 Sep 89 18:08:07 GMT References: <2631@iscuva.ISCS.COM> Sender: news@mipos3.intel.com Organization: Corporate CAD, INTeL Corporation, Santa Clara, CA Lines: 50 In-reply-to: davids@iscuva.ISCS.COM's message of 28 Sep 89 16:40:27 GMT In article <2631@iscuva.ISCS.COM> davids@iscuva.ISCS.COM (David Schmidt) writes: > We've been having problems lately with mail coming in via SMTP from certain > hosts. The problem occures when a ">From " line is in the header. It > appears that sendmail decides that this is an invalid header and treats the > rest of the header as message body (inserting a blank line before the >From > line). > > This ends up generating an "Apparently To:" header as the original "To:" > header is after the ">From" line. > > We have a temporary fix in that removes ALL ">From" lines from the message > before it's sent from the other system, but this is just a hack. > > Could anyone give me a fix for my sendmail.cf file that will get sendmail to > recognize the ">From" lines as valid header lines? > > I am running Ultrix 3.0 on a MicroVAX II and we do not have source to the > Ultrix sendmail. The problem is that the line is not a valid header line. I suprised that it even gets delivered. The RFC that control this (821 and 822) state that the format of a message for SMTP is that the header lines all begin with the headers keyword, followed by a colon, followed by the rest of the line. (I'm simplifying here.) The header is to be followed by one blank line and then the body of the message. A line starteding with "From " or ">From " is not a valid header line. The format for Unix mailboxes has the "From " line before the header. That's probably where this line is from. You don't want to fix sendmail, you want to fix the machine that is generating these lines. The Apparently-To: header line is sendmail's work. The recipients are specified when the connection is established. If sendmail can't find a valid To: header, it will add in the Apparently-To: header. -Israel Pinkas -- -------------------------------------- Disclaimer: The above are my personal opinions, and in no way represent the opinions of Intel Corporation. In no way should the above be taken to be a statement of Intel. UUCP: {amdcad,decwrl,hplabs,oliveb,pur-ee,qantel}!intelca!mipos3!cadev4!pinkas ARPA: pinkas%cadev4.intel.com@relay.cs.net CSNET: pinkas@cadev4.intel.com