[EMAIL PROTECTED] (David Stern) writes: > On Fri, 27 Feb 1998 11:08:26 EST, Daniel Martin wrote: > > My interpretation is that smail only makes use of the from_field > > variable if incoming mail has no "From:" or "Sender:" fields already; > > further, if there is a From: field already, then smail inserts a > > "Sender:" field using the from_field information only if the > > pre-existing From: field doesn't match what smail would have written > > with from_field. > > IOW: If I'm replying to a message, the header writing will be different > than if I send a new message? I'd not fully considered this previously.
No - what this means is that smail uses the from_field variable to fill in a "From:" header if a "From:" header doesn't exist. If a "From:" header does exist, but is different from what from_field would have put in, and a "Sender:" field doesn't yet exist, then smail uses from_field to fill in the Sender: header. At least, this is my reading of the man pages and the way things should work; from_field should be used as a backup to fill in headers that aren't there in mail smail has to deliver (either to the outside or to local mailboxes). Testing on my own setup seems to indicate that smail doesn't add a Sender: line (so long as no header-rewriting is in effect); Also, it seems to do slightly odd things to incoming smtp mail that has no From: line. > IOW: I need the Sender: line because my local hostname is not my isp's? Right. > The sender line is good, because it tells where I'm connected when the > message was sent, but does it make sense for my mail to be > accepted/rejected based on a temporary hostname? This is what my isp > told me had occurred. Looking at earlier messages of yours, there were two Sender: headers showing up - and one of those headers had two "@" signs in it. That could have thrown some mailers into enough of a fit to reject the message. <snip> > was good, but now that my Sender: line is bad, my From: line is being > rejected. This might be a good time to ask: Which form is best? No idea. Any mailer which rejects one of the forms should probably be considered broken (just be certain that the mailer in question is rejecting your mail because of some headers using that form). > > I think there are historic reasons (before from_field was used for > > "Sender:" fields) for having it begin with "From:". > > IOW: the from_field code always modifies the From: line? No; what I said above. I think that at one point the from_field code was intended to only modify From:, but that later the author decided that in some cases it could modify Sender: as well. However, so as to not break already existing config. files... (you see the rest). That said, my own testing indicates that prehaps the author was not successful in making smail's from_field code modify Sender: headers. > So why did the man page indicate the from_field wrote the From: or the > Sender: line? Wishful thinking? -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
