> Support > Special Case SMTP Addressing

8.4.x

Special Case SMTP Addressing

Subject: Re[2]: Bugs in SMTPLink
Author: Ron Herardian at GSS
Date: 10-02-96 13:49

Rich,

Honestly, I don't agree with your reading of the RFC. In fact, quoting is not fully general (p. 10). Therefore, reconsider the nesting of the three special lexical tokens in the string ""<@>"". Arguably the "<>" and "@" characters should be ignored if they are within a quoted string, but we're not talking about theory here, we're talking about what normally works--as opposed to the rather bizarre addresses you are calling technically 'correct' (""<foo@bar.baz>"Foo Bar <foo@bar.baz>"?). The RFC is sufficiently vague to allow differences in implementation so nesting specials in so unusual a way can't be a good idea.

Anyway, you already know the solution to the problem: no bizarre addresses, no problem. What's to argue about? Are you saying that Lotus should recode to support this From format? If that's your goal, I think you're wasting your time.

How about this: find out where the bizarre addresses are being generated; correct the problem at the source instead of at the destination at that's that. Frankly, you'd have to break sendmail pretty bad to get this kind of from field. Tell me this: How are these strange addresses being generated, and by what software?

Ron

--

Subject: Re: Bugs in SMTPLink
Author: "cc:Mail Interest Group" <CCMAIL-L@LISTSERV.OKSTATE.EDU> at
INTERNET_ROUTER
Date: 10-02-96 09:02

Ron Herardian wrote:

> Let's see some actual headers from problem messages.

Okay, when I change this:

From: "<MAILER-DAEMON@cacd.rockwell.com>" Mail Delivery Subsystem <MAILER- DAEMON@cacd.rockwell.com>

to this:

From: Mail Delivery Subsystem <MAILER-DAEMON@cacd.rockwell.com>

The mail goes through fine. If I leave it alone, it fails, because SMTPLINK drops the first quote.

> Anyway the construction:
>
> From: "<
>
>is INCORRECT. The quote represents a comment, NOT an address, therefore a single
>quote followed by an address is obviously incorrect. Since when is the actual from an
>address RFC822 comment?

I think you need to go and re-read the RFC, specifically pages 44-45. Here's a step-by-step breakdown of WHY the first example header is correct:

1. An 'address' is a 'mailbox' or a 'group'
2. a 'mailbox' is an 'addr-spec' or a 'phrase' and a 'route-addr'
3. a 'phrase' is '1*word' (sequence of words)
4. a 'word' is an 'atom' or a 'quoted-string'
5. an 'atom' is '1*<any CHAR except specials, SPACE, an CTLs>'
6. a 'quoted-string' is self-explanatory

Therefore, in the header that looks like:

From: "<foo@bar.baz>" Foo Bar <foo@bar.baz>

We have a quoted string ("<foo@bar.baz>"), two atoms (Foo and Bar), followed by an addr-spec (<foo@bar.baz>). This header, therefore, complies fully with the RFC822 spec. If you drop the first quote though, it doesn't. ;-)
--
Rich Holland Desktop Networking & Application Support
vox: (319) 295-0784 Rockwell CACD, Mailstop 106-103
fax: (319) 295-5999 400 Collins Rd NE, Cedar Rapids, IA 52498
print unpack("u","92G5S\=\"!A;F]T:&5R(\'!E<FP\@:&%C:V5R\"\@\`\`");

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